World is On Edge of Climate Abyss, UN Warns (theguardian.com) 266
The world is on the verge of a climate abyss, the UN has warned, in response to a Guardian survey that found that hundreds of the world's foremost climate experts expect global heating to soar past the international target of 1.5C. From a report: A series of leading climate figures have reacted to the findings, saying the deep despair voiced by the scientists must be a renewed wake-up call for urgent and radical action to stop burning fossil fuels and save millions of lives and livelihoods. Some said the 1.5C target was hanging by a thread, but it was not yet inevitable that it would be passed, if an extraordinary change in the pace of climate action could be achieved. The Guardian got the views of almost 400 senior authors of reports by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Almost 80% expected a rise of at least 2.5C above preindustrial levels, a catastrophic level of heating, while only 6% thought it would stay within the 1.5C limit. Many expressed their personal anguish at the lack of climate action.
"The goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C is hanging by a thread," said the official spokesperson for Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general. "The battle to keep 1.5C alive will be won or lost in the 2020s -- under the watch of political and industry leaders today. They need to realise we are on the verge of the abyss. The science is clear and so are the world's scientists: the stakes for all humanity could not be higher." Alok Sharma, the president of the Cop26 climate summit in 2021, said: "The results of the Guardian's survey should be another wake-up call for governments to stop prevaricating and inject much more urgency into delivering on the climate commitments they have already made." He said world leaders needed to get on and deliver on the pledge they made to transition away from fossil fuels at Cop28 in December.
"The goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C is hanging by a thread," said the official spokesperson for Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general. "The battle to keep 1.5C alive will be won or lost in the 2020s -- under the watch of political and industry leaders today. They need to realise we are on the verge of the abyss. The science is clear and so are the world's scientists: the stakes for all humanity could not be higher." Alok Sharma, the president of the Cop26 climate summit in 2021, said: "The results of the Guardian's survey should be another wake-up call for governments to stop prevaricating and inject much more urgency into delivering on the climate commitments they have already made." He said world leaders needed to get on and deliver on the pledge they made to transition away from fossil fuels at Cop28 in December.
burning coal vs nuclear (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, so we can start using more nuclear power and shut down coal and oil and gas power plants and this would reduce our yearly CO2 production by maybe 15%, which is significant given 50 Gigaton CO2 we are adding to the atmosphere yearly or we can spin the wheels on all these pointless carbon credits and pretend that we are doing something.
Re:burning coal vs nuclear (Score:5, Insightful)
Takes about 5 years to add a new plant to the grid (median time is around 55 months in previous years, sometimes it's twice that).
We could add vertical shaft construction and modular steel brick to shorten the time and reduce costs.
So let's pretend everyone in the major world governments G7 + Russia, China, and India could get together this year and commit to reducing CO2. And it would be vital for China to be on board, because their CO2 output is greater than the combined output of the rest of the top 5 (United States. India, Russia and Japan).
So we wait 5 years to bring nuclear power online. And probably do little about oil and gas consumption in the meantime. That means we have a 50-50 chance of hitting new high marks for global temperatures before we can even address the situation.
And massive idiots [msn.com] are working to undermine efforts with misinformation campaigns. The people should be stringing up oil executives for the grift they have ran for decades, instead we are letting them feed the general population garbage science.
So I don't konw. I think we're boned by the ineptitude of our civilization. Maybe we'll somehow push through it in the end. Or maybe a new civilization will arise centuries after the collapse of this one. Who's to say, I guess I'm a glass half full kind of guy.
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We can't build shit any more in 5 years. There are too many layers of grift and red tape. To build at that pace you have to ram eminent domain through courts very fast and buy land at low cost, suspend all those fancy rules about environmental impact, etc. So basically go back 50 years. If we could do that we could also build new highways and towns to solve housing ...
Scaling up pressure vessel manufacturing is going to take a bit more than 5 years too.
Re:burning coal vs nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
The people should be stringing up oil executives for the grift they have ran for decades, instead we are letting them feed the general population garbage science.
Adding At a Dinner, Trump Assailed Climate Rules and Asked $1 Billion From Big Oil [nytimes.com] (and other sources):
Former President Donald J. Trump told a group of oil executives and lobbyists gathered at a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort last month that they should donate $1 billion to his presidential campaign because, if elected, he would roll back environmental rules that he said hampered their industry, according to two people who were there.
About 20 people attended an April 11 event billed as an “energy round table” at Mr. Trump’s private club, according to those people, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss the private event. Attendees included executives from ExxonMobil, EQT Corporation and the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for the oil industry.
The event was organized by the oil billionaire Harold Hamm, who has for years helped to shape Republican energy policies. It was first reported by The Washington Post (What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign [washingtonpost.com])
Over a dinner of chopped steak, Mr. Trump repeated his public promises to delete Mr. Biden’s pollution controls, telling the attendees that they should donate heavily to help him beat Mr. Biden because his policies would help their industries.
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Oh, so when a Republican is president, leftists don't like the idea of a president governing by fiat?
Complain to Mr Obama who, utterly unwilling to compromise on legislation with Republicans (well, th he offered to compromise as long as the "compromise" was completely agreeing with him) chose instead to legislate through rule making, and fuck that inconvenient constitution.
Well, Republicans can do it too, I guess. I think it's equally reprehensible, mind you, but let's be clear who started this back and fo
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Ok, so we can start using more nuclear power
And where do we get this nuclear power from? Are you proposing we build some? Because there's a climate energy on and we need actual meaningful solutions, not projects which may or may not be completed sometime in the 2040s which do nothing but spew out more CO2 into the air in the meantime.
The time for nuclear power was 20 years ago. It's too late. Move on to something achievable.
Re:burning coal vs nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
To the average Green campaigner no using nuclear is more important than reducing Co2.
That was maybe true thirty years ago, but no longer. These days environmentalists are very divided about nuclear power.
e.g., ENERGY: Why even environmentalists are supporting nuclear power today [npr.org].
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This is why I find discussing nuclear power pointless; the advocates won't admit that nuclear power has any problems, and the detractors don't admit that problems have any solutions.
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I have yet to hear any practical solutions to the following issues, but if you have them then I'm more than willing to listen.
1. Speed of deployment. Even China needs 5 years to build one on a site where there are already other reactors. In Europe it's 20 years. It's not due to lawsuits or anything like that, e.g. all that was resolved for Hinkley Point C (the site of existing reactors) and it is still taking 20 years.
2. Cost. Nuclear is eye-wateringly expensive. The UK, the world's 4th largest economy, can
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Seems it would be smart to have a combination if you're seriously wanting to remove fossil fuels from the equation without disrupting life as we know it...which is highly energy dependent on availability and affordability.
Problems & Solutions [Re:Nothing to be divided (Score:4, Insightful)
I have yet to hear any practical solutions to the following issues, but if you have them then I'm more than willing to listen.
1. Speed of deployment.
Worldwide average is six to eight years. But where is the argument saying that it must be six to eight years? There's no physical law saying that construction must take six to eight years, that is simply the number today. The solution would be, ok, deploy them faster.
In any case, all infrastructure changes take time to implement, not just nuclear power plants. But climate warming is not a problem "today." It is a problem for the entire future of the human race. We will continue to need solutions tomorrow, five years from tomorrow, and fifty years from now.
2. Cost. Nuclear is eye-wateringly expensive.
What is your argument saying that nuclear must be expensive? All the analyses I've ever seen say that the approach of taking a single standardized design and deploying it over and over would be cheap. Your counter is?
3. Proliferation is a real concern.
True. This is the problem that is most often ignored, even by nuclear detractors.
4. Nations are understandably not keen on relying on foreign technology and expertise, and developing their own is expensive and risky (financially and in terms of safety).
I'd call this one an illusion. Nations grab foreign technology and expertise all the time.
5. Grids are moving away from "base load" suppliers to demand shaping
Too complicated to discuss in a slashdot post. Quick answer is, utility markets are all different and have different needs, and the real-world solution has to have a variety of different sources.
6. Safety is still an issue, and so far claims that a reactor is completely safe and unable to fail catastrophically have proven to be, shall we say, "optimistic".
Always a concern, of course. If we can't learn from mistakes, will continue to be a concern. There is a huge literature on the subject, far too extensive to summarize. I'd like to see use of one of the inherently-safe nuclear plant designs.
7. Fuel supply is a concern for many nations, as is disposal of spent fuel.
That's the second issue that is way too often ignored. If we went 100% nuclear and didn't reprocess fuel, we'd run out of uranium. The very first answer is, we can't switch to massive nuclear power usage unless we start to reprocess spent fuel. The social and political difficulties of that are monumental (the technical issues are hard but not impossible). In the longer run, we'd need to start breeder reactors. The social and political difficulties of that are even more monumental (the technical issues are not actually hard).
By the way, I know about thorium reactors (every prototype has had some kind of serious defect)
Thorium reactors been made, and shown the basic idea is not crazy. I am not sure whether the new ideas for thorium reactors are going to be as good as the advocates propose, but I'm technologically optimistic: we can make it work if we choose to put in the effort. Thorium, of course, would solve the fuel problem (at least for longer than the reasonable look-forward time span.)
and Small Modular Reactors (most of the downsides of full size reactors, worse fuel efficiency, and decades away from commercial mass production).
Agree. It was a captivating idea: the big problem with nuclear reactors is that they scale down poorly, so you don't have a path of makimg quick progress on small scales before moving to large scales. Unfortunately, taking a concept that does not scale down well, and saying "I have it! Let's scale it down!" was not a good idea to solve the problem.
If you want to suggest those as solutions, plea
Re:Problems & Solutions [Re:Nothing to be divi (Score:4, Insightful)
Worldwide average is six to eight years. But where is the argument saying that it must be six to eight years? There's no physical law saying that construction must take six to eight years, that is simply the number today. The solution would be, ok, deploy them faster.
This is magical thinking. Do you have a practical way to build them faster, without compromising safety? If China can't do it, I can't see how anyone can, but I'm always open to suggestions.
The fact that you can't think of solutions is not a proof that solutions can't be found.
But climate warming is not a problem [just] "today."
It's something we need to deal with immediately.
It is a problem that will continue to be a problem five years from now, and fifty years from now.
Are there any solutions to these problems today? Because renewables are here and they work,
They work for some markets. Saying they can work for all power requirements is, in your words, "magical thinking."
What is your argument saying that nuclear must be expensive? All the analyses I've ever seen say that the approach of taking a single standardized design and deploying it over and over would be cheap. Your counter is?
People have tried,
No they haven't.
none of them have succeeded. Show us it working. I can show you serial production of wind turbines and solar panels.
So your argument claiming that nuclear can't work is "it doesn't work now, so therefore it can't ever work."
I've spent decades doing solar cell research. I remember when the argument against solar was "it's too expensive now, so therefore it must always be expensive." It wasn't a good argument when it was anti-solar, and it still isn't.
The rest of your argument is identical: "it isn't practical now, therefore it must always have problems." Nope.
(but, with that said, it's no worse than most of the nuclear advocates, who won't admit that there are any problems in the first place.)
Re:burning coal vs nuclear (Score:5, Funny)
To the average Green campaigner no using nuclear is more important than reducing Co2. This is the biggest obstacle to clean power.
Ya, but as the climate continues to change, maybe they'll warm up to the idea. :-)
Re: burning coal vs nuclear (Score:4, Insightful)
no, fuck you. we in the third world don't rely on HVAC so our houses won't crumble apart eaten away by mold. we also don't live in "thousands of square feet" houses, and don't have AC for the garage.
we don't drive 50 miles to work every day either, or keep even more thousands of green yard, or build in places where power going out for half a day means freezing to death
building smaller, more efficient houses and relying more on public transportation... hell, even in rezoning so you can actually have a grocery store near your house will have significant effect in carbon emissions reduction and have barely noticeable in your (perceived) quality of life.
but it's just impossible to have a discussion with an American. you know only one way to do things, the way your dad did it, and also his dad's way, and also his dad's grandfather's way. and you ain't gonna change anything because conservativism (nothing to do with politics) runs through your veins . you Americans are simply unable to grasp the concept of change. you do things only one way and refuse to even consider alternatives
Declare War on Climate Change (Score:2, Interesting)
Need more bombs for your war?
Here, take $90 billion and let us know if you need more
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No problem. I volunteer you to build that wind farm. Feel free to pay for it yourself.
Re:Declare War on Climate Change (Score:5, Insightful)
He gets to keep the profits of his labor. You can resettle on a different planet since you didn't want to save this one.
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They're going to fight tooth and nail to be the last person on a flaming slag heap, just so they can use their dying breath to start a diesel generator.
This is why half of us don't trust you lying twats. The planet is not going to die. Some parts of it probably will become uninhabitable.. Other parts may become vastly more habitable (Siberia, Canadian North, Antarctica). But the planet is absolutely not going to die. Those of us with educations know that..
We watch you foam-at-the-mouth lunatics who know NOTHING about what you claim to know. We see you spouting absolute lies and lefty propaganda. All the while you constantly wrap the green movement in
Re: Declare War on Climate Change (Score:3)
âoeThose of us with educations know that.â
May I ask what your education is? Biology? Physics? A science degree?
âoeThe planet is not going to die.â
Two words: O-shuns.
The oceans.
A worldwide coral bleaching is going on right now.
https://phys.org/news/2024-05-... [phys.org]
https://www.newsweek.com/coral... [newsweek.com]
âoeMass extinctionâ: I know, coral, you donâ(TM)t eat coral. But ocean ecosystems are delicate webs.
King crabs near Alaska: theyâ(TM)re mostly gone. Look it up.
Look where excess
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Re:Declare War on Climate Change (Score:5, Interesting)
War gets a free pass from capitalism. It does not have to make a profit, it gets showered with 'free money'. The spending is justified as insurance against the 'potential disaster' of another country invading your country. Well here we have the scientists telling us of a 'potential disaster' of not just one country but the whole f*cking world that could be lost.
Global boiling? Climate abyss? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Indeed; global warming is real, and it is going to get worse, but the fervor to keep phrasing the same information in scarier words is not helping.
There is nothing whatsoever new in this news article.
The 1.5 C target has no particular significance other than it is a nice neat number. Yes, it is very unlikely that we won't surpass 1.5 C of warming, but this is not news either. That goal only could be possible with concerted global action, and it shouldn't be news to anyone that there is no global concerted
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Indeed. 1.5 degrees C is just lower than 2 degrees C -- which has long been believed to be when things are going to turn really bad.
Re:Global boiling? Climate abyss? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because there are enough people out there who are too stupid to see anything coming until it punches them in the face, and a handful of utter psychopaths who are apparently dedicated to murdering as much of the world as possible by lying to the stupids, we're currently in the process of blowing past 1.5C with our collective foot holding the gas pedal to the floor.
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In my view, there is *nothing* anyone can do to stop humanity to burn all the natural gas, petrol and coal lying around. So what we must do, it make sure that when there are none left, we have some capability to survive without them, and with a +3C temp at least.
That's an ordeal, I know, but from my POV, it's the only question that needs answering. The rest is battling an unwinnable fight. Petrol will burn.
Our our collective foot is indeed holding the gas pedal to the floor
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1.5C is not "of no particular significance." It represents the approximate amount of warming vs 1900-1950 that will lead to problems and some biome shifting, but nothing really catastrophic.
1.4C also represents the approximate amount of warming vs 1900-1950 that will lead to problems and some biome shifting, but nothing really catastrophic.
and 1.6C represents the approximate amount of warming vs 1900-1950 that will lead to problems and some biome shifting, but nothing really catastrophic.
and 1.7C represents the approximate amount of warming vs 1900-1950 that will lead to problems and some biome shifting, but nothing really catastrophic.
and...
Each is progressively worse, but there's no abrupt t
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Well /. doesn't generally post the non-clickbait titles. We have a system in place on this wild commercial Internet, and we must work with it (or around it).
Just because a headline is designed to attract eyeballs doesn't disqualify the entire topic of discussion.
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Amen. Climate change is real. It'll have real world impacts. But all this "point of no return" and "abyss" talk is just nonsense. You'd think the planet was gonna be a lava world in 12 years based on the rhetoric.
The temperature increase will be a big net negative for humanity, particularly along coasts and near the equator, but it ain't Armageddon.
Not only that but the doom and gloom seems to be contributing to the issue of demographic collapse. A ton of young people are not having children and its no
Re:Global boiling? Climate abyss? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nah, it's just significant parts of the earth that are currently inhabitable for humans that will no longer be, collapse of some ecosystems causing serious issues in parts of the world that are still inhabitable, indeed sea level rising causing serious issues on coasts (you know, where all the ports are and that are huge centers of economic activity), and serious increases in catastrophic weather (hurricanes etc...)
Humanity will indeed most likely survive, our society however, that remains to be seen. I'm wondering what our generation will see happening in the coming decades, and what kind of world the next generations will have to face.
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Maybe using accurate words, instead of marketing punchlines, would make the climate cause more credible.
They are interested in a crisis and not a cause based on the informed deliberation. As such, this hyperbolic language is used to intentionally mislead. Only nobody will listen to them in 10 years, then we will waste another 50 years without doing bare minimum to address the long-term problem.
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Re:Global boiling? Climate abyss? (Score:4, Informative)
decades or millennia [Re:Global boiling? Clima...] (Score:2)
Milankovitch cycles [wikipedia.org] explains a lot of what we are seeing.
Milankovitch cycles occur on time scales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years.
They do not explain any of the current warming we are seeing, on time scales of decades to hundreds of years
Nobody cares if the effects are not spelled out (Score:4, Insightful)
1.5C is wishfull thinking and it's going to get far worse: https://www.un.org/en/climatec... [un.org]
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/... [nasa.gov]
Unfortunately, politics and propaganda from unscrupulous business interest is driving us towards a dystopian future.
Re:Nobody cares if the effects are not spelled out (Score:4, Insightful)
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There have been so many "sky is falling" headlines that the average person is numb to the problem. Many US citizens don't even really understand what 1.5C means and why it matters. There needs to be explicit explanations of how things like extreme weather calamities, mass extinctions, loss of coastal cities, food costs, famine and world wars are going to happen in our lifetime.
As a born and raised in the USA person, I'm allowed to say this. Almost 50% of Americans believe one of the following:
1) Climate change isn't real. Open your eyes, people!
2) OK, maybe it's sort of real, but if it ever gets really bad, we'll just invent our way out of it in no time.
3) God will intervene and save us all from it or if he chooses not to, just accept it.
To be as fair as I can to those people, it really doesn't help when the most public spokesperson for "We need to fix this now!"
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When the people who are allegedly the most concerned about it are the ones causing it, it is hard to take it seriously. Self-described progressive take more flights and fly more miles than conservatives. Yet conservatives are the bad people, as always. The rich and affluent have tried to scapegoat the poor and working class for their sins, and climate change is no different.
All you hear about is how those uneducated backward rednecks do not believe in it.
They do not need to though, Progressives, by the
So? (Score:2)
Meanwhile, in China... (Score:5, Insightful)
China is building six times more new coal plants than other countries, report finds. [npr.org]
Until we get China and India to play along, all the handwringing in the world won't mean squat.
Re:Meanwhile, in China... (Score:5, Insightful)
Until we get China and India to play along, all the handwringing in the world won't mean squat.
Not just China, the entire world other than the US and Europe. TFA calls for "...urgent and radical action to stop burning fossil fuels and save millions of lives and livelihoods." What I find tone deaf about that statement is that people's lives and livelihoods are threatened today by a lack of abundant and cheap energy. I don't see how you tell someone who scrounges half the day to find enough wood to make charcoal for their smoky, inefficient, indoor charcoal stove that we can't build a coal or natural gas power plant so they have electricity. I don't see how you tell them "sorry, you can't have an inexpensive two-stroke scooter, you have to walk."
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With our birthrate in the USA, we're TRYING to depopulate but the government and businesses REALLY hate that, so we turn a blind eye to immigration, legal or not.
Obviously our entire system of perpetual growth is unsustainable but since all our social programs and private market retirement programs, not to mention keeping rich people rich, rely on this perpetual growth, perpetual growth is what we must have!
Enough of us are poor enough that we wouldn't notice the difference if wall street crashed or not.
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America itself isn't really that overpopulated. I can't swear to the numbers but a while back I think I saw that if the entire globe had the populate density of the US, then we'd basically need 1.5 Earths worth of resources for everyone to maintain an American standard of living.
On the other hand to give every current resident of the planet an American standard of living, we'd need 5 Earths worth of resources.
Lifestyle may be adjustable without major impacts though. Largely our society uses much more disp
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Overpopulation IS a myth. Overpopulation with our rates of consumption isn't. That's the problem.
We built a society on the idea that the more you consume, the better your life is. Reducing the number of people around will just give more junk to feed the endless hunger.
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Basically for a modern American lifestyle we're overpopulated already, so a sustainable future involves fewer people or crappier lifestyle.
Then why are we encouraging millions of so-called "migrants" to flood our borders?
What do put "so-called" before the word "migrants"? "Migrant [cambridge.org]" means people who move from one place to another; what is "so called" about that? Would you prefer to call them "refugees"?
In answer to your question, we don't encourage millions of migrants (so called or otherwise) to flood our borders. Who exactly do you believe is "encouraging" migrants to flood our borders? Certainly not Biden: https://www.yahoo.com/news/bid... [yahoo.com]
https://www.axios.com/2024/05/... [axios.com]
https://theweek.com/speedreads.. [theweek.com]
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Don't be retarded. He phrased it that way because democrats don't want you calling "migrants" by their legally accurate name: illegal aliens.
Except most of them aren't. Right now, what people are complaining about are refugees, who are actually not illegal aliens.
I heartily agree that the refugee problem on the border (particularly the southern border) is a problem. But it turns out that the way to ask for refugee status in the US is that you come into the US and ask. Blame the U.S. immigration law, specifically the Refugee Act of 1980.
https://www.rescue.org/article... [rescue.org]
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Re:Meanwhile, in the U.S. (Score:2, Troll)
You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
Giving $1 billion would be a “deal,” Trump said, because of the t
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BS. The USA outsources it's pollution to China as does everybody who externalizes their problems to those who'll stoop the lowest! You can take measures to police how your suppliers behave and your government can do its part as well. Sure, you will pay more money to save CO2, save local jobs, etc. You want people to pay more so you can keep your job? yes... but not to keep other people's jobs? yes.
CHILDISH: But he does it! So I can do it too! (it being anything at all.) It's the flaw of our primate des
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China is building six times more new coal plants than other countries, report finds. [npr.org]
Until we get China and India to play along, all the handwringing in the world won't mean squat.
More pointless fearmongering looking at single stats in isolation. China has not had an increase in coal consumption in over a decade. Their new coal plants are largely replacing existing ones improving efficiency in the process. In the meantime China is also building more green power and nuclear power *per capita* than any other nation and will end their ascension to a 1st world nation having emitted only a tiny fraction of the CO2 as any other nation.
India on the other hand. Fuck that backwards idiot runn
A Target is not a Stratagy (Score:4, Insightful)
Scientists can repeat the target again and again, but until they put forward actually workable strategies on how it might be achieved without decimating living standards the target is meaningless to most people on the planet, who just want the same standard of living as the average American.
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Sometimes you have to force things via regulation.
I'd say embrace that option little as possible since the government sucks and screws up more than it fixes. With CFC's there wasn't another great option, I'd agree. Now, in my perfect world, folks would be able to sue the makers of harmful products where they have standing. If you pollute someone else's property or shared property like the air or water, you don't get to claim ignorance as a defense once the harm is known. The fat cats also should not get an option to pay off regulatory agencies with bribefi
Re:A Target is not a Stratagy (Score:5, Insightful)
The strategies are not complicated or murky. The problem is they don't generate profit.
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Which means they don't work. People will always operate in their own best interests - usually with short term interests winning out over long term (not the wise decision, but its the frequent one).
If xyz green energy is $0.05 per kWH and coal is $0.12 per kWH, people won't need to be regulated into making the environmental friendly choice. And even if you say "we'll make them do it!" remember that we live in a democracy (more or less). If you try to make them do something they don't want to do people wil
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Scientists can repeat the target again and again, but until they put forward actually workable strategies on how it might be achieved without decimating living standards the target is meaningless to most people on the planet, who just want the same standard of living as the average American.
More so, the target needs to account for cyclic fluctuations like Milankovitch cycles [wikipedia.org] and El Nino, as we can't have measurable short term goals when the target is smaller than these fluctuations.
Re:A Target is not a Stratagy (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientists can repeat the target again and again, but until they
It's a scientist's job tell you how the universe works. It's not their job to tell you what to do with that information.
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It's a scientist's job tell you how the universe works. It's not their job to tell you what to do with that information.
I suspect you've seen a TV show or a movie, read a book perhaps, where there's some dire situation on some kind of ship. Maybe this is a submarine in WW2, a spaceship in some distant part of the galaxy, but whatever the situation you have the captain get the subject matter experts from around the ship in a room to discuss options. The captain will ask about how much food and fuel is available, if the medical bay lacking in anything, what weapons are operational, what other ships are in reach of communicat
Nice (Score:2)
19 more years please... (Score:2)
Just hold it together until 2043. That's all I ask. That would make me the longest living male in my family going back at least four generations, and all indications are that if I'm alive then, I'm not going outside. Keep the financial system more or less intact for 19 more years, and don't burn my house down during a drought. Then my Gen-x, fossil-fuel burning, climate-change ignoring, sports-car driving, property-owning ass will have gotten mine.
Hyperbole aside, I got the economic benefits that come with
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Yea. I kind of feel like we're effectively saying: Sorry grandkids! Sucks to be you, but I got mine!
I suspect the answer is going to be a painful reorganization of our world economic system(s), and a major cultural transition when it comes to material possessions and wealth. I don't think it's going to occur peacefully either. And I think other people, at least subconsciously, know this and are kicking the can down the road instead. Because who wants to have a civil war? I don't.
Theoretically, if we have a
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It's the primary problem with HUMANS. not democracy. so called mob-rule is best because the most people get their way and a minority do not. hacking the majority's minds is entirely a human problem no matter how you spread out the power.
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hacking the majority's minds is entirely a human problem no matter how you spread out the power.
Not if they don't immediately have the power to change it by voting. It's common for people to get annoyed at their political opponents free speech. The most expedient way to fix that is to ban them. In a pure Democracy, it's easy, just get a 51% majority and you can remove any right, eliminate any individual freedom. That's why it's best to hold on to your Republic by deciding up front that no matter how loud, woke, or whiny folks get, we don't remove things like Bill of Rights protections. However, that's
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the sky really is falling, this time! (Score:3, Troll)
I swear!
-Chicken Little.
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This handy graphic illustrates the problem. https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]
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Go show that to someone that has the power and influence to make a difference. None of us have any of that. In fact, even if everyone Slashdotter died tomorrow, it still wouldn't matter.
Truth is, we don't care because our leaders don't care. You want to walk everywhere, eat bugs, live in a cardboard box with no climate control, go for it. The rest of us are going to keep working to catchup to the filthy rich that are infinitely worse then any of us could dream of becoming.
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What problem? I see a graph with data and some projections.
We are heading toward our first 80 F day today. And the boomers are still demanding that the heat be turned on.
You know who is worse than the boomers? The stoners, all still wearing puffy jackets and wool caps.
I'll compromise my lifestyle when the rich do... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll give up my car and flying when the rich give up the same. I already live in a significantly smaller living space and use significantly fewer electrical and water resources then a rich person, so continuing to harass me to give up more stuff is a non-starter.
I expect my leaders to lead by example and I don't see any of that happening at all.
So as soon as the rich stop flying around, owning cars and mansions, the sooner I'll give up my car and air travel. So far, the people that yell the loudest about climate change are also the ones doing the most damage to the biosphere.
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Do you own property on multiple continents so you can easily bugger off to escape the effects of bad climate like the rich can? If not, maybe that's not actually the best strategery?
there was a story about a boy and a wolf (Score:3)
Classic Science Fiction - are u the antagonist? (Score:3)
Scientist(s) discover problem(s) and people ignore them until finally the hero listens can takes action using the ignored science (and often apply scientific reasoning) to save the day against all the hurdles the ignorant, corrupt, religious, or narcissistic antagonists place in front of them. The hero getting recognition in the end (maybe also for the scientists who lived.)
Are you the antagonist in this story and which type are you? Will you get the fate you deserve (unlikely, because this isn't fiction.
Translation (Score:2)
We want American women and land.
Scam (Score:2)
Not a record low [Re:Scam] (Score:3)
If you eliminate all the carbon dioxide from the earth the planet would DIE,
No one is proposing to eliminate all the carbon dioxide from the earth.
There are many many things of which too much is harmful, but none at all and you're dead.
and by the way, we are literally at RECORD LOW LEVELS of CO2 in the earths environment
Not even close. We're at about 400 ppm atmospheric CO2 right now. It's been less than half that during the glacial maxima of the Pleistocene. There have also been periods below the current 400 in the carboniferous, the Permian, and the late cretaceous.
Solutions (Score:5, Insightful)
I read an article a while ago that was talking about the coverage of global warming in the media and how it focuses on gloom and doom stories (ahem) rather than practical solutions.
There needs to be collaboration to come up with realistic multifaceted plans which get presented to the public. We're not all going to just stop driving tomorrow, we're not going to convert everything to wind power, we're not all going to start eating only plants grown in our own gardens, and even if we did there would no doubt be significant portions of the problem left unsolved.
People fixate on the idea that there MUST be one solution that fixes the problem wholesale. To deal with an issue this big, it's going to require attacking the problem from multiple angles at the same time.
Nuclear isn't the solution. Electric cars aren't the solution. Carbon capture isn't the solution. Making do with less isn't the solution. Renewables aren't the solution. Limiting air travel isn't the solution. ALL of these things TOGETHER might actually add up to a solution.
Nuance and detail are the one thing no one can handle anymore. Everything has to be simple and complete and understandable by a three year old. Everything has to be tribal. We're going to need to get past that if we want to do anything about this, though. People are going to have to start thinking a little harder and maybe warming up to the idea that the solution is going to include some things that they personally aren't thrilled with.
This is stupid and worthless (Score:2)
UN is NOT going to stop it because they do not want to put the screws
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Every bit of reduction is valuable. Every improvement saves lives. If the US drops its COâ emissions by 10%, that's going to reduce the worst of climate change. We might not stay below +2ÂC that way, but we might stay below +2.5ÂC.
Quick! Let's fix it with more taxes (Score:2)
Said the Democratic party heads.
Ice in your drink as a model (Score:2)
Globalist power grab (Score:3)
Since climate change is, supposedly, a world-ending threat, there
is no limit to the power and resource confiscation it will justify.
Look forward to:
- UN deciding which industries are permitted to receive investment
- UN deciding which businesses are permitted to manufacture products
- A relentless flood of "climate refugees" into all western lands
This is regardless of the veracity of the climate change claims.
We aren't going to surpass 1.5C (Score:4, Insightful)
We are going to FAR surpass it. Just as things are now. What the true consequences of that will be is going to be for our children to find out, and their children (if they survive).
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It's okay if they disagree. But if in disagreeing they both get in the way of effective climate change policies and end up being wrong in their opinion, then consequences? Otherwise I don't see how we motivate people willing to fuck around and find out. They seem to figure that if they are wrong and everything goes to shit, everyone will be paying the same consequences so who cares.
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Great, great. So what happens when you find out that the number of people who don't give a shit is far in excess of the number who do? You're scenario would likely have 500 million people "ordering" the other 7.5 billion off to an island.
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Technically that's a viable solution. Not the one I'd prefer, given that I was raised in a cultural that believes in personal liberty and individuality.
But gently reminding people that we have some serious problems to solve hasn't been working either. So I wonder at what point we'll start locking up climate deniers that get in the way. Probably won't happen in the US, but I can imagine other governments might eventually reach for that as a solution.
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It's not just accountability, in the end the entire world is still competing for money, power, ... and stopping climate change weakens your ability to compete. So everyone is slooowllyyy doing something to at least be somewhat 'responsible', but to really make a change the entire world will have to work together, and i'm not seeing that happen all that quickly....
You've got all the matrix like jokes about humans being a virus, but there's probably some truth in that. If we don't overcome our need to compete
Re:Accountability (Score:4, Informative)
Sure there is. It's called a carbon tax.
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Feel free to take a nap.
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Yep. Granted, its not as if it doesn't exist. You can tell versus 30 years ago. The hurricanes are a little stronger and a little more frequent. Its a little hotter in the summer in some places.
That's the thing though - people mostly don't care about minor changes. We saw that with COVID. Around 7 million people died from COVID. That number by itself is astronomical, but the reality is that the percentage of people who got it and died was pretty low (its just that its a percentage of a huge number),
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That'll be the same thing with climate change. The effects are small enough and incremental enough that nobody is every going to care, even if the economic costs or even death toll is a large number.
Exactly. Boiling the frog...
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You cite the New York Post? Why not cite Fox News? or twitter?
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That article is from a Swedish newspaper. Unforutnately you can't read it without a subscription, but the clip is enough to see he's talking about the 1972 UN Conference on the Environment held in Stockholm.
The conference was about pollution, especially water polution, sustainable development of resources, and the developing world. Climate change doesn't seem to have been on the agenda.
I'm not going to blame you for the New York Post being a shithead, but in reference your later post