Climate Change III - The Power of Chaos

[Rippounet]

6 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Sorry, I know discussion got a bit sidetracked from Rips four path model for France.

Not at all. The four paths are just archetypes meant to stimulate reflection and discussion. Obviously, no country could choose scenario 1 tomorrow - save perhaps Bhutan and North Korea - but conversely, I don't think any country will be able to hold 100% to the 4th scenario for very long. If you take France for instance, even the most neo-liberal government we've ever had has mixed elements of all four paths, and there's a lot of measures from the 1st and 2nd scenarios that are emerging spontaneously at the grassroots level. For the record, believe it or not, even the frickin' neo-nazis don't scoff at scenario 2 - there's a fringe far-right movement promoting it.

When it comes to this topic, there can be a thin line between the prescriptive and the predictive. Of course, not a single nation on Earth would pledge to reduce its meat consumption by 50% today. But we're talking about scenarios for 2050 here, so one has to bear in mind that by then humanity will be facing the cumulative consequences of over 25 years of unpredictable weather and extreme events. If you think of 2022 or 2023 as good years climate-wise, you will see that measures that are politically unacceptable today may very well become emergency or "common sense" ones down the line.
I know most people will look at scenarios 1 and 2 and chuckle, but they're not policy platforms, and the point of including them in the discussion is not to convince people to choose them voluntarily, but also to prepare the population for what adaptation may entail.
Of course, no one actually knows what's going to go down. Some regions will be hit hard, and others will be relatively blessed. Some changes will happen gradually, and others almost over night. The point here is that we don't know what production and global supply chains will be maintained and which won't. By 2050, there may be shortages of some types of meat, but that's not too bad, I'm more worried about shortages of drinking water (see: Montevideo right now), rice, wheat, corn, vegetable oil, sugar... etc. It's cute that we agonize over luxury items like meat, individual vehicles, airplane trips or smartphones, but let's bear in mind that people who'll only have luxury items to worry about by 2050 will be incredibly lucky.

[Prue]

I agree that there need to be unpopular measures fought through by the governments without caving in to oil lobbyists or only thinking about being re-elected. If e.g. they prohibit the sale of mass-produced meat EU-wide, meat will become more expensive and people can only afford it once or twice a week (which is healthier anyway). Until the 1960s or so, people only had a 'Sunday roast' and ate mostly vegetarian during the week due to the cost of meat. And that was better for both the health of humans and animals...

 More important would be to regulate the industry and to even reverse some privatisations. For example, they privatised the national rail system in Germany in the 1990s and told the new for-profit-organisation: You will have to pay for maintenance of the railways yourself, but if they are really in a horrible state of disrepair and can't be saved any more, the German state will pay for new railways. *facepalm* Of course that was a great incentive *not* to do any maintenance but to let everything run down. No wonder they don't have a very good reputation for punctuality any more.

If you are able to understand German or make sense of the horribly auto-translated English subtitles, this comedian made a good point: 

 

[ThinkerX]

Not politically viable in the US - at least not for a few more years, once the 100 / 100 scenario hits. (100+ consecutive days of 100+ *low* temperatures across the entirety of the southern US, with a couple dozen days of high temperatures in excess of 120.)

 

Concerns that The White House Could Declare COVID-Like ‘Climate Emergency’ (msn.com)

[The Anti-Targ]

On 7/31/2023 at 4:54 PM, IlyaP said:

I only have meat about once a week and I found the transition from 5-6 days a week to 1 startlingly easy. There's access to so much variety in Australia, including lots of assorted seafood choices, that it's really not difficult. 

That said: no one's quite gotten the fake cheeseburger down pat yet. Fake mince? Absolutely. But fake burgers? It's like it's *almost* there but not quite. 

For red meat, my consumption rate is 1-2 times a week. But most days there's some kind of animal protein going down the gullet. The methane difference between ruminant products and other animal products is huge. So going alternative animal proteins is about as good as having a veg day(s) from a GHG perspective. All food has a GHG footprint because there is fossil fuel going into the energy and transport side of getting the food onto your plate. 

[The Anti-Targ]

On 7/31/2023 at 5:19 PM, A Horse Named Stranger said:

 

Also this.

Sorry, I know discussion got a bit sidetracked from Rips four path model for France.

 

A bit sceptical, though I haven't read very far so it might get teased out somewhere, but this statement is arse

Quote

The agriculture sector is responsible for nearly half of methane (CH4) emissions, two-thirds of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions and 3% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activities worldwide1,2,3,4. These three GHGs account for 80% of today’s gross warming (29, 5 and 46%, respectively)1, suggesting that agriculture may be responsible for approximately 15% of current warming levels.

Specifically on methane. It treats all methane the same, but the reality is ruminant and rice methane is different to the fossil extraction sources of methane. Not all methane is equal. As a short lived GHG once methane breaks down to CO2 if it comes from the biosphere (i.e. is part of the biological cycle) that carbon no longer has any warming influence. But if it comes from fossil sources the carbon continues to have a warming influence. Biomethane needs to be considered separately to fossil methane esp if you are looking out to long term effects.

[mcbigski]

On 7/19/2023 at 11:46 AM, Zorral said:

Funny, you know, that 'ignorant, uneducated farmers' believe in climate change, right?

Facing a Future of Drought, Spain Turns to Medieval Solutions and ‘Ancient Wisdom’
Acequias, a network of water channels created by the Moors over 1,000 years ago, are being excavated and brought back to life to adapt to the crises of climate change.

The photos are stunning. Long piece, particularly of interest to those for whom Spain, its people and history are of perpetual interest.  Not to mention how farmers are trying to cope with climate change.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/world/europe/spain-drought-acequias.html?

 

There was a thing called the medieval warming period, though they're scrubbing the records as best they can.  Or did the Moors just overbuild their aqueduct systems because they had public works money to burn on boondoggles?

On 7/20/2023 at 3:50 PM, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

No, you're not. You're talking about using sustainable agriculture for 'thousands of years' to supply enough wine for people when whole areas simply could not drink wine because they could not grow grapes. There's a reason that Northern Europe doesn't have a big wine culture compared to Southern Europe and that's because they drank beer instead, and they did that because they could not grow grapes reliably in that area. 

That reason is that we aren't in a relative climate maximum compared to at least of couple of eras in the historical record.  Wine was grown in England, and the Roman Republic/Early Empire, had a more warmer and favorable climate than later centuries.

On 7/30/2023 at 9:53 PM, karaddin said:

I'm still pinning my hopes on "lab grown" beef being able to replace a sufficiently significant portion of the market to dramatically reduce the need for beef cattle. I'm sure good steak is going to be a lot harder to replicate, but if your basic mince etc can be provided en masse at substantially lower cost than traditional growing methods then that will take care of a lot of the demand.

Well maybe there's a way to turn cellulose into tasty of cuts of meat more efficiently than nature devised.  Path dependency is a thing.  I wouldn't be in a hurry to bet on it though.  If it becomes a thing, it's more likely to be because the process is more susceptible to centralized control rather than because it's more efficient.

On 7/31/2023 at 12:06 AM, The Anti-Targ said:

But I will keep on saying it, don't be distracted by farming. It's resurrecting the animals and plants that have been dead for millions of years that is the real problem. In terms of feeding the world transitioning animal farm land to forestry for carbon offsets is more of a problem. Would be nice to transition to arable or horticulture to keep it in food production, but the reality is a lot of that land isn't suitable because of terrain and / or low fertility, so it's just permanently taking land out of food production meaning the need to grow more protein and calories on less land. Fun times.

Millions of years?  Pfft!

Fossil fuels extracted now were in the biosphere 100 million years ago.  But then Earth turned to Venus before all that could be sequestered.  Or something.

I think you're arguing that fossil fuels are biological not geological and mis named.  Really to the small extent I have any concerns, it's for the latter case.

 

These climate evangelists really grind my gears.  Best way to preserve the environment is prosperity.  Which leads to discretionary income and smaller families.  Fixing the climate by denying people food, shelter, and energy is a mega fucktard hella dumb idea, unless you're mostly just actually planning on reducing the number of people.  Enough fission could create fertilizers instead of fossil fuels too.  Orbital solar is really the way to go, but the graft is probably better on local resource extraction.

[The Anti-Targ]

To fans of orbital solar, I have some land on Mars I'd like to sell you.

[Rippounet]

On 8/2/2023 at 6:12 AM, mcbigski said:

Fixing the climate by denying people food, shelter, and energy is a mega fucktard hella dumb idea

Have to agree on this one. You have to be an absolute moron to spread such bullshit.

[ThinkerX]

Couple of articles that leaped out at me this morning.

First, South America, currently in the grips of winter, is experiencing one record breaking high temperature after another, due to a combination of Global Warming and El Nino. As in literal heat wave/heat dome in places.

South America sweats under high temps -- in the middle of winter (msn.com)

 

On Tuesday, the mountain town of Vicuna in central Chile hit 37 degrees Celsius (almost 99 degrees Fahrenheit).

"It's been more than 70 years since a temperature like this was recorded" in Vicuna, Chilean meteorologist Cristobal Torres told AFP.

Unusually high temperatures were also recorded 450 kilometers (280 miles) south in the capital Santiago: 24C (75F) on Wednesday, with similar levels forecast for Thursday and Friday.

Meanwhile in Buenos Aires, the temperature exceeded 30C (86F) on Tuesday, making it the highest August 1 temperature since record-keeping began, according to Argentina's National Meteorological Service. The average August temperature in Buenos Aires is usually between 18C (64F) and 9C (48F).

Several cities across Uruguay also recorded temperatures of 30C (86F) on Wednesday.

"What we are experiencing is the combination of two phenomena: a global warming trend due to climate change plus the El Nino phenomenon," said Chile's Environment Minister Maisa Rojas, a climatologist.

 

Next up we visit California, where lowly students spent months painfully transcribing seismic data recorded on drums to create a measure of wave height going back most of a hundred years. They concluded that winter wave height increased by about a foot and have doubled in number since the 1970's, with the biggest increase starting in the 90's.

Waves rise 13 feet tall in California amid global warming: research (msn.com)

Until now, scientists relied on a network of buoys by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that collect data on wave height along U.S. coasts, but that data along the California coast only went back to 1980.

“Until I stumbled upon this data set, it was almost impossible to make that comparison with any kind of reliability,” Bromirski said.

To go back further, Bromirski gathered a team of undergraduate students to analyze daily seismic readings covering decades of winters. It was a slow, painstaking process that took years and involved digitizing drums of paper records. But he said it was important in learning how things have changed over nearly a century along California’s coast.

They found that average winter wave heights have grown by as much as a foot since 1970, when global warming is believed to have begun accelerating. Swells at least 13 feet tall (about 4 meters) are also happening a lot more often, occurring at least twice as often between 1996 to 2016 than from 1949 to 1969.

Bromirski was also surprised to find extended periods of exceptionally low wave heights prior to about 1970 and none of those periods since.

“Erosion, coastal flooding, damage to coastal infrastructure is, you know, something that we’re seeing more frequently than in the past,” Bromirski said. “And, you know, combined with sea level rise, bigger waves mean that is going to happen more often.”

 

Conservative commenters on both articles declared these reports to be 'fake news ' and were rather militant about it.

[mcbigski]

20 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Have to agree on this one. You have to be an absolute moron to spread such bullshit.

Are you being sarcastic? I'm assuming you are, but maybe...

My point was that prosperity is better for the environment than poverty.  Hierarchy of needs in a surplus economy.  So let's incentive prosperity.  I guess it depends on whether you're looking out for the masses or the elites though.

[Toth]

28 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

My point was that prosperity is better for the environment than poverty.  Hierarchy of needs in a surplus economy.  So let's incentive prosperity.  I guess it depends on whether you're looking out for the masses or the elites though.

For someone who is constantly worrying about "the elites", it is odd that I only see you advocating for the party and their policies to make the super rich richer and keep the current trend of ever increasing wealth gaps as it is. If I were you, I'd take another careful look who was in power when wages started stagnating in the US.

And yes, to your previous point, those emissions were in the atmosphere millions of years ago. And it took those millions of years and several extinction events to get them out of there. The issue we are facing is that we are drastically changing the atmosphere in a very, very, very, VERY short timeframe. Something life on our planet simply can't adapt to quickly enough. That is why we are already right in the middle of another mass extinction event RIGHT NOW.

And taking money in the hand to prevent the worst right now also has advantages for all of us. Don't you think shortening supply chains to stop shipping nonsense from China across the world and getting industries back home won't create prosperity? Will stop throwing money at Russia and Arabs for fossil fuels not make us more independent and in the end be far more cheaper, given how CHEAP renewables actually are once established? You have bought into the propaganda of those very same elites you fear so much, that switching to renewables somehow destroys prosperity, even though it in fact just creates new/different jobs and allows us to prevent a loss of prosperity though climate collapse where we would have to pour ungodly amounts of money for repairs from extreme weather events and to keep from starving. The only ones who have to fear for their "prosperity" are those in the fossil fuel industry and that's why they are lobbying so much and do everything so that useful idiots like you block change out of fear. Change that is bitterly needed right now.

[Rippounet]

17 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Are you being sarcastic? I'm assuming you are, but maybe...

I'm assuming you're being deliberately provocative by answering an argument nobody in their right mind would make.

17 hours ago, mcbigski said:

My point was that prosperity is better for the environment than poverty.  Hierarchy of needs in a surplus economy.  So let's incentive prosperity.  I guess it depends on whether you're looking out for the masses or the elites though.

Well, actually, sure. It all hinges on how you look at the hierarchy of needs. You certainly do want a surplus of the most essential goods, namely water, food, and energy, plus enough raw materials to produce or maintain other essentials (like habitation). When it comes to non-essential ones, you can incentivize activities with a low environmental footprint, which can mean a limitless amount of services. Healthcare is one such activity, so a society that went green could afford top-notch medical services and an excellent life expectancy. Everything artistic, education, most sports and games... That's genuine prosperity for the masses, by contrast to the mass production of quick material pleasures. 
Also, everything Toth said, though I'll add it's about a bit more than switching to renewables. Though from a strictly economic perspective, there's indeed no reason to think "GDP," that inadequate indicator, would even go down. Most developed countries have already mostly transitioned to a service-based economy, and with the relocation of essential industries, there'd be no shortage of jobs in the foreseeable future. Producing less goods, but localized, high-quality, repairable and recyclable ones is not a bad trade-off.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Wanted to share this pearl of wisdom I came across very recently.

 

Quote

I don't believe in human induced climate change. You should study geological history where the planet Earth was mostly inhabitable until God started terraforming it for humans.

The present population of 8 billion people with longer lifespans ever means humans are thriving.

God's plan to fill the earth with humans work.

In that sense Hallelujah, brothers and sisters.

[Corvinus85]

4 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Wanted to share this pearl of wisdom I came across very recently.

 

In that sense Hallelujah, brothers and sisters.

First time I see someone use the term of terraforming to describe days 3-5 of Genesis. Kudos to them. 

[ThinkerX]

Interesting article about climate change heretic Judith Curry. She doesn't fall into the 'full denial' camp, and in fact has published articles that agree climate change is real and human activity is a factor. What she disputes is the speed of the change, and given the limitations of the various models, she can make a somewhat credible argument for this stance.

Climate Scientist Blows The Lid Off The ‘Manufactured Consensus’ (msn.com)

[LongRider]

I just put this in the history thread, but also think it fits here as well:

August 14, 1912

Description of link:   English: "Coal Consumption Affecting Climate", a science news item published in the Warkworth, New Zealand newspaper the Rodney and Otamatea Times. The same news item appeared in other newspapers around the world in 1912, as general interest notes of this nature were widely copied between papers. The item is distinctive because it is one of the first news items linking fossil fuel consumption to a rise in CO₂ levels and consequent global warming or "greenhouse effect".

File:Rodney·and·Otamatea·Times•1912•Coal·consumption·affecting·climate.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

[Rippounet]

6 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

Interesting article about climate change heretic Judith Curry. She doesn't fall into the 'full denial' camp, and in fact has published articles that agree climate change is real and human activity is a factor. What she disputes is the speed of the change, and given the limitations of the various models, she can make a somewhat credible argument for this stance.

Climate Scientist Blows The Lid Off The ‘Manufactured Consensus’ (msn.com)

Yeah, I'm sure this scientist who claims to be earning less in the private sector than she was when working in a university, interviewed on a media outlet whose mission statement seems to be "Much of what the mainstream media reports is nonsense: bias, scare stories, and stories that miss the point," is a reliable source to help us reconsider our perspective on recent climate events. As for the guy who penned the article, he's the twitterX-handler for a group called "young conservatives" and also reports on a Republican senator accusing Biden of "inappropriately touching his wife" or on Anthony Fauci's personal enrichment dring the Covid pandemic, I'm sure he's a great journalist. There is every reason to take seriously the idea that the real problem is that UN officials "hated the oil companies and seized on the climate change issue to move their policies along” and not the crisis unfolding around the world.

In the real world, July 2023 was the hottest on record and the IEA reports oil consumption is at a record high and still growing.  But let's help cast doubt on the "fame- and fortune-seeking" alarmists who draw attention to these facts.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Rippounet

[Varysblackfyre321]

On 8/14/2023 at 1:22 PM, ThinkerX said:

Interesting article about climate change heretic Judith Curry. She doesn't fall into the 'full denial' camp, and in fact has published articles that agree climate change is real and human activity is a factor. What she disputes is the speed of the change, and given the limitations of the various models, she can make a somewhat credible argument for this stance.

Climate Scientist Blows The Lid Off The ‘Manufactured Consensus’ (msn.com)

I have to say that’s kinda usually on par with most conspiracy theorists when having to broach people who aren’t already fully in their ideological camp.

Flat earthers don’t tend to claim the earth is flat in debate with globe heads. They just  reject the notion  it’s a globe and allude to some grand conspiracy to cover up the truth(with little evidence).

[ThinkerX]

This article is a commentary on the devastation caused by the winter heat wave rolling over South America, which is depressing enough. The comments, though...I can't decide if they are even more depressing or just absolutely pathetic...

South America's scorching winter is decimating crops and threatening lives (msn.com)

[LongRider]

The fires in Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories of Canada look horrible!  The entire town has to evacuate they are so bad.  I hope all get out safely.