Quark Blast's page

In reading the IPCC report I had the thought that though the various scenarios were making certain assumptions about global GHG emission reduction, they were all averaging the 30-odd climate models to get a range of likely values.

But some models are far better than others at modeling certain aspects of the global climate (ocean currents, glaciers, CH4, wild-land fires, etc.). But wouldn't it make more sense to use the models for what they were created for and use the best ones at that?

When you do that, it becomes clear that there is really a floor to the future global average temp and that the IPCC scenarios showing the likely values and a spread up and down from that are covering a truth. The truth that the spread of likely future temperature in any given scenario is actually quite skewed to the high end.

Then there's the fact that none of the traditional models give us good cloud effect predictions at all and that the best estimate fix is that clouds will net-add to at least the near-term average global temp (say a few hundred to a few thousand years out). That raises the floor even higher. Not a lot higher but definitely not lower.

Then there's human nature in large numbers and it's amazingly invariant over time. Lots of people are dumb, really dumb. Take the nation of Germany. Dropped nuclear and went green like crazy and still ended up with a net increase in CO2 emissions a decade later. Eventually, maybe even this year, they will start down the other side and be reducing their CO2 punch, but it's the fact that while going green they went the wrong way for a decade plus is a good warning sign about what large groups of even well-intentioned people do.

At any rate the rest of the world isn't Germany and even if we were the switch from fossil fuels won't go fast enough. Building that much infrastructure in so short a time is too far from practical.

Solar and wind power alone can’t scale up fast enough to generate the vast amounts of electricity that will be needed by midcentury, especially as we convert car engines and the like from fossil fuels to carbon-free energy sources. Even Germany’s concerted recent effort to add renewables—the most ambitious national effort so far—was nowhere near fast enough. A global increase in renewables at a rate matching Germany’s peak success would add about 0.7 trillion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity every year. That’s just over a fifth of the necessary 3.3 trillion annual target.

To put it another way, even if the world were as enthusiastic and technically capable as Germany at the height of its renewables buildup—and neither of these is even close to true in the great majority of countries—decarbonizing the world at that rate would take nearly 150 years.

Are we totally screwed then? Some really smart people think so.

China, given their mode of government, could build nuclear and shut down coal fast enough to get the world 1/5th of the way to where we need to be by 2050. But then they're not moving that fast and they're also doing the old Massive Belt and Road Initiative that is undermining the green things they're doing at home.

Quark Blast wrote:

Perhaps so but the point of linking that article is that an amazing number of the AGW mitigation ideas/policies are right up there with telling people to eat babies

Aren't you the one always pushing that we need extreme changes? No air travel, everyone has to become vegetarian, population controls, sharp decreases in standard of living... et cetera.

I see why you might ask that question of me but it's because you're not parsing my statements correctly. I'll quote myself with new emphasis. See of that helps.

There's what we need to do to keep AGW at or below +1.5°C in the year 2100 and then there's what's practical.

The "extreme changes" (as you say) are what we need to do, I know too much about human nature to go for anything less than a practical solution and even then I'm not too hopeful.

:D

QB,

Can you imagine all the people playing Pathfinder instead of trying to kill each other to maybe solve our problems? Or what about a cross over between the MCU, Star Wars, Star Trek and Ghostbusters?

I can imagine anything possible, so... no.

I think it's a little late since I'm pretty sure most of Britain's working class hasn't had a say in governance for quite some time...

Perhaps so but the point of linking that article is that an amazing number of the AGW mitigation ideas/policies are right up there with telling people to eat babies and I'm slightly hopeful now that major media sources at least recognize/warn that this popular form of ####### ####### ideas exist.

Then there's all of these countries here: Top 10 Countries Most Reliant On Tourism

Though this very short list leaves out a number of countries that would go the way of Venezuela without the tourism cash injection, like Belize.

There's what we need to do to keep AGW at or below +1.5°C in the year 2100 and then there's what's practical. I'm having a hard time imagining anything less than +2.5°C in the year 2100 being practical. And I have a good imagination.

Related article:

The climate protest movement must not alienate Britain’s working classes

Quark Blast wrote:

First, the slug of methane we're throwing into the atmosphere today is a long throw. A half century throw at least. I'll round it up to 100 years before it all gets spewed out.

Assuming that we will continue emitting methane at current levels for 100 years is a completely different thing from your original claim that the methane we had already emitted would remain in the atmosphere at current levels for 100 years. One is an implausible assumption (e.g. even if we stay with natural gas, fracking reserves won't last a century). The other is just wrong.

Yes poor wording on my part.

Fracking is only one source of methane.

The permafrost melting is going to be the other half of that "100 year slug", and there's not a ####### thing we can do about it. The global average might only be up +2.5°C but the Arctic and sub-Arctic can be expected to see between +5.0°C and +8.0°C over the next 80 years. Lots of carbon locked in the permafrost there.

Quark Blast wrote:

Well so far solutions acted into law have been sufficiently failing, sometimes spectacularly so, such that both CO2 and CH4 have not only risen over the past decade but are rising at an increased rate.

A: Failure at the global level does not mean that all local efforts have failed. That should be obvious. Many parts of the world HAVE reduced emissions.

B: CO2 emissions have increased over the past decade, but NOT at an increased rate. Indeed, CO2 emissions per capita are decreasing. The rate of CH4 emissions HAS increased, but that's in comparison to having essentially flat-lined prior to the fracking boom.

A: Yes, millions have succeeded in reducing their carbon footprint. Billions have failed. You do the math.

B: Again, it's not the successes that will help us that I'm worried about. It's the failures that are far larger and on-going.

Quark Blast wrote:

The Yellow Vests were the result of just one example, from a fairly progressive nation, that failed hard.

France may be 'fairly progressive' in general, but the actions leading to the Yellow Vest protests were absolutely not. Fuel taxes targeted at the working and middle classes, discontinuation of the solidarity tax on wealth, and a minimum wage freeze were the major issues they were protesting against... all regressive policies.

It is ridiculous to try to force the people suffering the effects of global warming to also pay for the efforts to end AND adapt to it. Fossil fuels are the richest corporate sector in the history of the world. They can and should be made to spend a small fraction of those profits to clean up the mess their products have made.

Agreed. But the size and speed of change needed will engender many more ####### ideas of the sort that sparked the Yellow Vests. Our best realistic hope right now to come in below +2.5°C in the year 2100 is a global recession/depression that somehow lasts a decade or more and yet doesn't result in multiple international conflicts.

Quark Blast wrote:

The slug of CH4, while having "only" a 100 year residence time in the atmosphere

Methane's atmospheric residence time is about nine years. Nowhere near 100.

In any case, methane, particulate pollution, and various other factors you bring up as 'extras' are very simple to estimate and have been included in climate models for decades.

First, the slug of methane we're throwing into the atmosphere today is a long throw. A half century throw at least. I'll round it up to 100 years before it all gets spewed out. And this isn't considering ocean floor deposits.

And yes, they've been included in some climate models to varying degrees with variable assumptions about rate and interaction. The problem is the IPCC estimates are based on mashing the results of 30+ climate models together.

So the models that do well at telling us what CH4 is likely to do get dumbed-down down by being averaged in with the models that aren't especially focused on CH4 biogeochemistry. The albedo effect of fossil fuel particulates is rather straightforward and well constrained compared to the other things going on worldwide over decadal time scales. Dumbing-down those results isn't especially helpful either. And so on.

By dumbing-down these more definite known contributions they lower the possible floor temperature erroneously. Hence my estimate that the year 2100 will be at least +2.5°C over preindustrial.

Quark Blast wrote:

Further, the Yellow Vest protests were a 'canary in the coal mine'. All politics aside (and I mean that - not talking politics here), there will be a metric #### ton of push-back from the middle and near middle classes worldwide with the carbon taxes that will realistically be needed to make the transition to renewables anytime before 2030.

If carbon taxes (which... haven't you been insisting are wonderful and absolutely certain to succeed?) were targeted at the middle class then yes that would be a fiasco and go nowhere.

Well so far solutions acted into law have been sufficiently failing, sometimes spectacularly so, such that both CO2 and CH4 have not only risen over the past decade but are rising at an increased rate.

The Yellow Vests were the result of just one example, from a fairly progressive nation, that failed hard. Telling marginally rich people they need to sacrifice considerably more for the year 2100 isn't much of an inspiring-to-action clarion call.

Further, there are several billion people worldwide that want to be middle class by 2030. They won't get there riding sunbeams and waving at windmills.

Back to the OP:

Right now PF2 Core Rulebook, if it were a WotC product, would be ranking between #15 and #20 in the D&D 5e line of products.

I think that safely means the number of quarters is an indeterminate but large number; likely to go on for years more yet.

One of the things that's different is all of the tie-in products for the D&D 5e line. The Stranger Things starter set box, the Rick and Morty box, the Upcoming Movie (maybe?), and too many more to list here, with at least that many more in the works (depending on who you listen to).

Great post Aaron.

Any chance you could outline how the old 2E D&D modules helped (or didn't) to make the story more coherent?

I actually own a beat-to-#### copy of DL1 Dragons of Despair. It seems a little railroady to me but I've kept it because I like the stained with who-knows-what art work and maps.

Which is rather astonishing to my older self since I once made this post here, and I now play rather regularly in an Eberron campaign, albeit a heavily customized one.

...I think in this case that we will know within a decade (and perhaps in significantly less time) whether or not there is actually enough political will to make the hard and major systemic changes that are required (absent miracle tech) if we're to stay below 2C (Unfortunately, I agree with QB that we've already realistically missed any chance at staying below 1.5C).

There have been mostly pedantic and irrelevant objections to the following argument but I still think it's correct:

I believe uncontroversially that right now, under present atmospheric conditions, the globe is up about 1.0°C over the preindustrial mean.

All this effort at going green is going to result in very few atmospheric particulates and other compounds getting into the atmosphere from the transportation sector. That cleanup will add right at 0.5°C to the current overage.

If somehow the air transportation sector is also cleaned up, that will add another 0.5°C.

The slug of CH4, while having "only" a 100 year residence time in the atmosphere, is currently about 2.5x higher concentration than it has ever been for Earth's atmosphere over the last few hundred million years. Depending on who you listen to, CH4 is about 30x more powerful as a GHG than the dreaded CO2. That punch, that slug of methane, is not well modeled in what it will do to the global climate but it won't be good news.

Further, the Yellow Vest protests were a 'canary in the coal mine'. All politics aside (and I mean that - not talking politics here), there will be a metric #### ton of push-back from the middle and near middle classes worldwide with the carbon taxes that will realistically be needed to make the transition to renewables anytime before 2030. Nothing like saying #### ###! to about 4 billion people in hopes of furthering your goal. </sarcasm>

We will be fortunate if the year 2100 is only up 2.5°C.

And to stop the massive OTHER environmental issues that are NOT directly linked to Global Warming. Basically, the current movement grows and expands and changes the way we think or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then we're screwed. This really IS our last chance to voluntarily change...

We will be voluntold at some point. Whether that point is soon enough to be useful is yet to be determined.

...Basically, I'm HOPING that in 30-40 years we still won't know :-). That means we won't yet have failed and that is the best result possible right now :-(.

We will know by 2030. By then enough data will be in and modeled on supercomputers at least 1000x the speed of our current crop. There will still be uncertainty but by 2030 the year 2100 average global temperature "floor" increase will be well established.

Script treatments are like the first draft, the plot is there but needs to be fleshed out.

So for Episodes I & II you're saying they filmed the script treatments?

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

Oy, I remember working with people like that. Wonderful visions of iron spikes in their heads got me through the day.

I was talking about coworkers like Vanykyre's, not you, Quark Blast! LOL

As long as you don't iron spike my coffee, do what ya gotta do.

UN panel signals red alert on 'Blue Planet'

...[T]he loss of mass from the Antarctic ice sheet in the years between 2007 and 2016 tripled compared to the 10 years previously.

Greenland saw a doubling of mass loss over the same period. The report expects this to continue throughout the 21st Century and beyond.

...

"Extreme sea level events that are historically rare (once per century in the recent past) are projected to occur frequently (at least once per year) at many locations by 2050," the study says, even if future emissions of carbon are cut significantly.

...

The ways in which you may be affected are vast - flood damage could increase by two or three orders of magnitude.

The acidification of the oceans, thanks to increased levels of CO2, is threatening corals to such an extent that even at 1.5C of warming some 90% will disappear.

...

The formula is well worn at this stage - deep, rapid cuts in carbon emissions in line with the IPCC report last year that required 45% reductions by 2030.

"If we reduce emissions sharply, consequences for people and their livelihoods will still be challenging, but potentially more manageable for those who are most vulnerable," said Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC.

Big if there MR. Lee.

Atmospheric CO2 levels are at record amounts since the advent of humanity, and CH4 levels are unprecedented in Earth history while it has had anything like our present atmosphere.

Greta is truly a one woman climate crisis fighter. with mythic tiers.

Also with a death stare.

Obviously she needs to level up to become more effective. Her stare, while impressive, failed to nudge the Fr PM beyond mere condescension or the US Pres from sarcastic Tweet, and the Gr Chancellor seemed to use her as a photo-op.

Maybe for her swim back to Sweden she'll hit a milestone and can take Finger Waggle of Shame to improve her effectiveness.

phantom1592 wrote:

Now... maybe something like Legend of Huma? I seem to remember that was a standalone novel and would be fun worldbuilding... but the war of the lance?? Easy pass.

I vote for Weasel's Luck.

Amendation to my previous comment:

The movie needs to be PG-13 and, if for some reason they go with the DL setting, I'm going to have to picket anything invoking Tinker Gnomes, Gully Dwarves, or Kender. Those may work well in a book but I can't conceive they could translate to a movie and be anything less than retching.

How is everyone's Wednesday going?

Banner day here! I'm just on the upswing from my daily Starbies high.

As long as they aim for a PG-13 rating I'll go see it.

So while I think QB might be right, based on what I heard on the BBC and of course Greta Thunberg's lovely if very scathing speech to the UN...I feel hearten by the fact that little lady can have a Death Stare that even a Basilisk would envy.

Greta Thunberg to world leaders: 'How dare you'...

So up thread I was mentioning that there is a line to walk. Be too doomsday about AGW and turn people off. Be too hopeful and risk being a force multiplier for humanity's natural penchant for procrastination.

Clearly Greta is not afraid of my speculative thought on the risks of taking a doomsday position to spur action.

:D

Quark Blast wrote:

CBDunkerson wrote:

Quark Blast wrote:

Firms make green energy vows as call for action grow

Are they simply making good press? Or good investments now that it likely pays to invest in these? Both?

Better question: Why didn't they do this 10 years ago?

Because they wouldn't have made money on it 10 years ago.

I've told you before... only greed can save us now.

I have faith in human greed.

You mean by creating another global economic bubble and the collapse thereof will reduce GHG emissions and keep us below a +2.5°C year 2100?

Just to keep focusing on the misunderstanding/misrepresentation thing: You know that's not really what he meant, right?

Oops! Yeah, forgot the </sarcasm> at the end of my post.

Good call, thanks.

Quark Blast wrote:

Firms make green energy vows as call for action grow

Are they simply making good press? Or good investments now that it likely pays to invest in these? Both?

Better question: Why didn't they do this 10 years ago?

Because they wouldn't have made money on it 10 years ago.

I've told you before... only greed can save us now.

I have faith in human greed.

You mean by creating another global economic bubble and the collapse thereof will reduce GHG emissions and keep us below a +2.5°C year 2100?

I can buy into that.

Taking a big gamble on the collapse of the global economy though. Right now CO2, CH4 and N2O are still in their respective upwards trends and the CH4 levels are at unprecedented concentration levels. Which means we are giving the RCP 8.5 scenario a serious run right now. If the collapse holds off another 5 years or so we'll need a 20 year economic depression to set things "right". Yep... a BIG gamble.

Well, there's a lack of symmetry in the City of 1000 Planets that Sigil surely has, and Absalom station is more symmetrical but lacks the magi-tech feel that both Sigil and the City of 1000 Planets have.

So on the whole I think the next D&D movie would be better served by avoiding the Doorway-to-the-Verse feel and do something more classically D&D-ish.

So I guess QB isn't going with my Sigil idea either huh...

They already made that movie, I think.

No?

...What I want is a band of adventurers running a unique story that is NOT based off a novel that I can point out every cut line in. I want it based in a world I recognize with landmarks, npcs and monsters that I've experienced in my games. I think that's the best way to go.

Yes this.

Principal photography has wrapped on next year's Dune movie. If they can make that book into a good movie... but then I think the quality of the base story is well better than any of the D&D campaign world books.

Maybe they could throw in a cameo of one or more of the big guns but a Drizzt story will only confuse the uninitiated and frustrate the initiates.

Firms make green energy vows as call for action grow

Are they simply making good press? Or good investments now that it likely pays to invest in these? Both?

Better question: Why didn't they do this 10 years ago?

Looking at the climate marches/walkouts around the world and I see a bunch of very rich (by global standards) people demanding stuff they are unwilling to pay for when it comes to it (BTW - If you're a vegan pedestrian, dressed in fair-trade clothing, who's never darkened the doorway of Starbucks, then I'm not talking to you). It'll take some real momentum to turn this "global" protest into useful action. Here's hoping my cynicism is proven wrong this time. Finally.

Quark Blast wrote:

thejeff wrote:

It's really funny how QB claims everyone misunderstands him, while he's blatantly misreading their posts.

No, I understand their posts (for the most part), but their posts misrepresent what I'm saying in my posts (for the most part).

That's what you would say if you didn't understand them, but thought you did.

:D

You know that works both ways?

As it happens I have at least one dispassionate observer who agrees that I'm mostly clear in my arguments and (more importantly) that I regularly get misrepresented by CB and other unnamed participants in this thread.

Quark Blast wrote:

Roughly half of humanity needs to be vegetarian by 2050.

Like your climate change 'predictions', this is only true if we make the, absolutely ridiculous, assumption that there will be no significant changes in the next 30 years.

Oh there will be changes. Another couple billion people for one. With 2.5 to 4.5 billion others trying to have something like a Western middle-class lifestyle.

All those things you say about meat production becoming less impactful/kcal will certainly be true to some small degree. But that plus wind power and EVs won't make up for the GHG increases.

People, especially people connected to the Internet and all the glories revealed therein, will want stuff and not really give a #### about the long term consequences. Metro smog sucks today. Right now even. A +3.0°C year 2100 doesn't register as a concern for most people, and of the ones it does register with, well most of them will shave off a fraction of what they actually need to do their part.

Basically, you are advancing a Malthusian world view. Joining a storied tradition of being continuously wrong for two centuries and counting.

That's what you think.

If I were advancing mere Malthus-like ideas I'd be posting worries about the 20 billion people alive in the year 2100, the total lack of forest cover by then so all those people could eat with disposable chopsticks, and how another 80 years of fracking will make our atmosphere 0.01% methane.

Henny-Penny: The Sky is Falling!

But no. I've done nothing like that and it's a little sad you can't see the facts. Sucks to be you!

...Still mostly glad that I'll be dead before things REALLY hit the fan, though.

There's still hope! We might have a nuclear war before then.

It's really funny how QB claims everyone misunderstands him, while he's blatantly misreading their posts.

No, I understand their posts (for the most part), but their posts misrepresent what I'm saying in my posts (for the most part).

As for the uniform carbon tax you're talking about, it's not inherently a bad idea, but it's no easier to reach politically. Without an actual world government, there's no way to impose and enforce such a thing.

This I agree with:

Practically, you only really need buy in from the major economies/powers. They have (collectively) enough clout to more or less force the rest of the world to go along.

.

Faster pace of climate change is 'scary', former chief scientist says

Dr Friederike Otto from Oxford University is an expert in the attribution of extreme events to climate change.

She told us that in a pre-climate change world, a heatwave like this might strike once in 1,000 years.

In a post-warming world, the heatwave was a one-in-a-100 year phenomenon.

In other words, natural variability is amplifying human-induced climate heating.

“With European heatwaves, we have realised that climate change is a total game-changer,” she said. "It has increased the likelihood (of events) by orders of magnitude."

...

Prof John Church from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia told us: "Some things appear to be happening faster than projected. This may be partially related to the interaction of climate change and natural variability as well as the uncertainty in our understanding and projections.

“In my own area of sea level change, things are happening near the upper end of the projections.

“What is scary is our lack of appropriate response. Our continued lack of action is committing the world to major and essentially irreversible change.”

Following current agreements/policies/laws the globe will be expected, by consensus of climate experts, to rise +3.3°C by the century's end.

China, India and Russia will make up about 40% of the GHG emissions over the coming decades. At least two of those countries are proven liars when it comes to presenting themselves favorably. Thus we can expect the nearly 40% number to actually be a little low, say 5% too low. Those three, combined with other lessor emittors and liars, can be expected to throw off a +1.5°C target by at least +1.0°C, and arguably by an additional +0.5°C or more.

That and another 100 niggling little things not adequately captured by the IPCC means one would be a fool to expect the year 2100 to warm by less than 2.5°C.

One niggling example:
Roughly half of humanity needs to be vegetarian by 2050. Even India will fall short and outside India no country is likely to be anywhere near that - as in I'd be surprised if more than a few small countries exceed 15% vegetarianism.

The Hu have released their first full album- The Gereg.

I am therefore neck-deep in it at present.

They need to tour with Taylor Swift.

Quark Blast wrote:

Great! You disagree with Palmer.

No. As I said, Palmer is entirely correct about the complexity and uncertainty of cloud feedbacks... in computer models.

Palmer does not address the observational data on cloud feedbacks at all. But then, why would he? His entire career has been in climate modeling.

Yes, Tim Palmer, Royal Society member, respected researcher among his peer group the world over, and total rube compared to CB's understanding of climate change. </sarcasm>

Also, FYI - because you missed this as well - Palmer favors cloud modeling, not because it's the only factor he recognizes, but because it's his specialty/contains the most uncertainty. Had you watched his talk and followup Q&A you would know, as I posted above, that Tim Palmer talks at length about other potential amplifiers of the human CO2 increase. Not just cloud modeling.

You live in your world, I'll live in the real one thanks.

You are incorrect that international efforts will automatically fail... and in your self contradictory claim that international efforts to enact a global carbon tax would automatically succeed... and that this is the only option. There are ways that a 'no exceptions flat net carbon tax' could fail (e.g. tax rate too low, weak enforcement mechanisms, countries refusing to sign on). There are ways that other efforts could succeed (e.g. market forces are doing the lions share of the work currently). Your zero dimensional thinking is (literally) self defeating.

I see (yet again!) that you didn't watch the talk and followup Q&A that Dr. Palmer gave. Other than that oversight, your rejoinder is brilliant and ought to shut me up for shame any moment now. </sarcasm>

Now of course I agree that market forces have and will continue to do the "lions share of the work" ( <-- See!?? I used quotes so you wouldn't accuse me of plagiarizing you.... I'm learning). Problem with that solution is it guarantees at least a +2.5°C year 2100. That's not a future we want.

The thing with a carbon tax like Palmer proposes (same in USA as in UAE, same in Canada as Cameroon, same in Algeria as in Argentina, ...) is that it's only one thing to agree on, and far, far easier to track compliance.

Compared to an international voluntary pledge, plus local laws variably restricting GHG emissions and variably enforced, plus numerous exceptions for this country and that, plus numerous exceptions for this industry and that, plus all the time it would take to create this myriad pile of ineffective regulation, which pretty much guarantees us a future we do not want.

Quark Blast wrote:

He also talks about the difficulty in modeling clouds and how important they will turn out to be. "The error bars for cloud effects are enormous" says Palmer.

Cloud modeling is indeed incredibly complex and highly uncertain.

However, the conclusion that this means clouds could have a vast impact, either greatly increasing or greatly decreasing global warming, is almost certainly wrong.

I can say this because, as I have tried to explain to you so many times before, computer models are just one of many ways that we study global warming. The most relevant other method for estimating cloud feedbacks is... direct observation. We have about a century and a half of increasingly detailed weather data. We can look at this data to see how sudden changes in type and location of cloud cover have impacted temperatures, how cloud cover patterns have changed over time, and how all of this has played in to global warming. In short, we can study how clouds have responded to global warming thus far... and the results of those studies are that not much has changed.

Great! You disagree with Palmer. I'm going to side with Palmer over you since his bonna fides and sense-talking far outweigh your meandering diatribes against my person (and occasionally against my arguments).

Clouds theoretically COULD have a massive impact on global warming if there were significant changes in cloud cover, but all available data confirms that this hasn't happened. Could it suddenly start happening in the future? Maybe, but no mechanism has even been suggested for why clouds would have the negligible feedback impacts observed thus far and then suddenly change their reaction to a warming world so drastically that they'd become a major influence.

Proof that you haven't read or watched (as appropriate) any of my recent links on this issue. The climate change literature is replete with stronger feedback mechanisms and/or heretofore unknown mechanisms that have come to light with study showing exactly this type of problem.

As for clouds specifically, as Palmer himself says, "The error bars for cloud effects are enormous" and "The fate of humanity does depend very much on how clouds respond to human emissions of CO2".

His whole point, in the talk + Q&A that I link to, is that this issue of clouds are emphatically an open question of the highest practical and scientific interest.

As to Nordhaus (note: there is no 'e'),...

I'll let Auto Correct know, thanks

...you aren't understanding the difference between his true statements that global warming pacts and laws haven't accomplished much and your false statement that any such attempt is a waste of effort and/or counterproductive. The existence of successful international environmental pacts (e.g. the 1987 Montreal Protocol) proves you wrong. Hell, the global carbon tax which you insist is the only solution (in truth it is one of several options) would itself be just such an international agreement as you say cannot possibly work.

Again, you disagree with me, you disagree with the globally recognized experts on these issues, Nordhaus in this specific case.

Let me correct you on the issue of the carbon tax, and I'll emphasize the salient point for you since you seem unable to read for comprehension in cases where you know you already disagree with the person you oppose. To repeat myself exactly but with emphasis:

What we need is a flat net-carbon tax. No exceptions.

It's the "no exceptions" part that you fail on ( in case you missed it yet again). Kyoto/Paris/Katowice... the one coming up in NY, etc. All those are either voluntary and/or have exceptions for various ostensible participants and that is, in part, why they've failed so badly to date. Remember, the rate of CO2 emissions has held steady for decades until recently, where it seems to be increasing at an increasing rate. Way to go global "agreements" (<-- Just between you and me and the InterWebs, I don't think they know what that word means).

Then you seem to go on a diatribe quoting various people saying uncontroversial things ('global warming would have been easier to stop 30 years ago', 'nuclear reactors were left running longer than originally planned', 'water is wet', 'the Sun is hot', etc) as 'proof' that the false things you say are true.

This is standard fare on global "agreements":

Had we started in earnest 20 to 30 years ago we would be having an easy time of things now. As it stands, we won't make the +1.5°C target for the year 2100, nor a +2.0°C target. As Rolling Stone said in the article cited by me, "we are headed for a warming of at least 3°C by the end of the century" without global dramatic action now.

Dramatic action isn't going to happen, "now", globally. Give us another 10 years, baring global war or a nuclear exchange, and I think the globe will be well on the way to a +2.5°C end of century. If it turns out to be a +3.0°C end of century I won't consider myself wrong since my +2.5°C is a best case or floor prediction.

I'm just curious about what other role-playing games Pathfinder and Starfinder fans are also playing...

Technically I'm Starfinder agnostic since I've never played it nor likely ever will.

I gave up my 5e campaign because players are flaky as ####!

Currently still a regular, if secondary, member of my cousin's 3.PF Eberron campaign. However, in the month of December he plans to convert his campaign over to 5e because this is coming out in November and he's fatigued with all the Rules Mastery needed to keep a 3.PF game moving.

A few years ago I looked into ye olde TTRPGs and thought I would like to play RuneQuest and Ars Magica but could never find anyone to play. Found a few who had played one or both but none that currently did or were interested.

I've thought about playing Cthulhu but the GM would have to be good to make it work. I've played detective scenarios before as well as the time-is-running-out adventures - and Cthulhu is both of those iirc - so the GM really needs to be sharp to keep it interesting.

Hello From the Year 2050

Let’s imagine for a moment that we’ve reached the middle of the century. It’s 2050, and we have a moment to reflect—the climate fight remains the consuming battle of our age, but its most intense phase may be in our rearview mirror. And so we can look back to see how we might have managed to dramatically change our society and economy....

By the end of the 2020s, it became clear we would have to pay the price of delaying action for decades.

For one thing, the cuts in emissions that scientists prescribed were almost impossibly deep. “If you’d started in 1990 when we first warned you, the job was manageable: you could have cut carbon a percent or two a year,” one eminent physicist explained. “But waiting 30 years turned a bunny slope into a black diamond.”

As usual, the easy “solutions” turned out to be no help at all: fracked natural-gas wells were leaking vast quantities of methane into the atmosphere, and “biomass burning”—­cutting down forests to burn them for electricity—was putting a pulse of carbon into the air at precisely the wrong moment...

Environmentalists learned they needed to make some compromises, and so most of America’s aging nuclear reactors were left online past their decommissioning dates: that lower-carbon power supplemented the surging renewable industry in the early years, even as researchers continued work to see if fusion power, thorium reactors or some other advanced design could work.

The real problem, though, was that climate change itself kept accelerating, even as the world began trying to turn its energy and agriculture systems around. The giant slug of carbon that the world had put into the atmosphere—more since 1990 than in all of human history before—acted like a time-delayed fuse, and the temperature just kept rising. Worse, it appeared that scientists had systematically underestimated just how much damage each tenth of a degree would actually do...

Now if I had simply posted this article written for Time here, in this thread as my own creation, CB and others would have spared no effort to slam my sophomoric understanding of Climate Change.

I just love quoting at length from respected journalists and scientists to show my perspective on AGW is quite correct.

.

Can We Survive Extreme Heat?

The Paris Climate Agreement ... aims to limit the warming to 2°C. Given the current trajectory of carbon pollution, hitting that target is all but impossible. Unless nations of the world take dramatic action soon, we are headed for a warming of at least 3°C by the end of the century...

Air conditioning is one of those paradoxical modern technologies that creates just as many problems as it solves. For one thing, it requires a lot of energy, most of which comes from fossil fuels. AC and fans already account for 10 percent of the world’s energy consumption. Globally, the number of air-conditioning units is expected to quadruple by 2050. Even accounting for modest growth in renewable power, the carbon emissions from all this new AC would result in a more than 0.5°C increase in global temperature by the year 2100.

This excerpt from Rolling Stone is just a throw-away citation showing that even ####### ###### like the journalists at RS can understand the AGW situation and, therefore, agree with my take on the overall situation.

Here's another example of a useless effort.

World 'losing battle against deforestation'

An assessment of the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) says it has failed to deliver on key pledges.

Launched at the 2014 UN climate summit, it aimed to half deforestation by 2020, and halt it by 2030.

Yet deforestation continues at an alarming rate and threatens to prevent the world from preventing dangerous climate change, experts have said...

"Since the NYDF was launched five years ago, deforestation has not only continued - it has actually accelerated," observed Charlotte Streck, co-founder and director of Climate Focus, which co-ordinated the publication of the report.

The report says the amount of annual carbon emissions resulting from deforestation around the globe are equivalent to the greenhouse gases produced by the European Union.

On average, an area of tree cover the size of the United Kingdom was lost every year between 2014 and 2018.

Tropical forest loss accounts for more than 90% of global deforestation, with the hotspot being located in Amazon Basin nations of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Peru...

However, researchers highlighted why the overall picture was so gloomy and why halting deforestation was so vital in the battle against climate change.

"Halting deforestation and restoring tropical forests, for example, could provide up to 30% of the mitigation required to help meet the Paris Agreement," explained Eszter Wainwright-Deri, forestry technical advisor at the Zoological Society of London.

"This cannot be achieved while zero-deforestation commitments continue to be dishonoured."

So this article is yet one more example of why the Pledges/Local Law approach to mitigating AGW simply will not work. The only nations who keep their pledges/laws are either the ones already doing so OR the ones with nothing left to degrade (hard to go downhill when you're sitting at the bottom already).

The WRI's Mr Hanson concluded: ""We are losing the battle but we should not give up hope. This report, among other things, gives a clarion call that we need to re-energise commitment, action and financing towards the NYDF."

Oh yeah! We need to "re-energise our commitment", that'll work for sure. </sarcasm>

What we need is a flat net-carbon tax. No exceptions.

Quark Blast wrote:

As for Dr. Palmer's presentation. Well, he essentially echoes the many salient points I have made regarding the non-computability of our global climate in the year 2100 using our current data and models.

I watched the first half of that and no, he most certainly did NOT agree with you. In fact, he pretty explicitly had the opposite opinion to what I think you have (although you are so bad at expressing yourself that I admit I'm not at all sure I understand your position).

Tim Palmer talks at length about potential amplifiers of the human CO2 increase.

Methane as an amplifier at ~22:00 is skimmed over but that one is likely bigger than the IPCC 2013 models admit. He also skimps on addressing contrails and ignores entirely talking about the effects of transportation particulates.

He also talks about the difficulty in modeling clouds and how important they will turn out to be. "The error bars for cloud effects are enormous" says Palmer.

Palmer spends some time on the three primary laws associated with climate models. Namely,

Newton's Law of Motion

Planck's Law of Photon Absorption

Clausius' 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

When he talks about climate modeling and the laws, he goes in at greater length how Newton's law, as applied to a fluid like the atmosphere (via the Navier-Stokes equation), is a non-linear equation and thus is highly recalcitrant to estimation since all scales of interaction in the fluid affect all other scales (aka the Butterfly Effect). What that means is the cloud systems are not actually modeled directly but approximated. The approximation makes unproven assumptions and therefore add an irreducible degree of uncertainty to climate models.

"The fate of humanity does depend very much on how clouds respond to human emissions of CO2", says Palmer.

The answer is exa-scale super computing. The answer will have to wait until the mid 2020's at the soonest. Because, as it stands, current climate labs would be looking at spending $100M/anum just to run the simulation at the level of detail Palmer says is needed. And ironically this level of computing will depend on incredible quantities of cheap power. Or near-miracle increases in computing efficiency. Or we can settle for low precision to get more accurate overall modeling. Palmer argues for the last of these three options.

But that will only give us more useful data. It won't make the decision for us ("us" being global humanity).

He summarizes his overall message here (58:30 - 1:02:17) if you can't be bothered to "waste" a bit over an hour of your life to see the whole talk.

Quark Blast wrote:

The video on the economic side of getting CO2 emissions under control (Dr. Nordhause) made several excellent points. A few, but not all, are:

Regulating carbon with crazy local/national/international laws is a total ###### waste of effort, that is ofttimes even counter productive.

And I watched all of this. It was far too short and had assertions with little actual evidence. I agree that he thought a much higher carbon tax was the way to go and that he thought current measures grossly inadequate. But he did NOT say useless or counter productive

Oh yes he did. Specifically he mentioned this in the context of the pace of increase of CO2 emissions since Kyoto. How not only have these proffered laws and pledges not reduced the net increase rate but that the rate may actually be higher these last few years (i.e. the trend in CO2 emissions is trending the wrong way !). He hammers on this idea of laws and pledges again in the Q&A (aside from a straight-up carbon tax, no exceptions; as previously mentioned).

Quark Blast wrote:

I never said it was impossible, full-stop/can-never-happen/violates-the-laws-of-physics.

Yeah, you did: "Ah, but as one could read from a slightly less recent post of mine, there is simply no way, no way, we can scale wind and solar to meet even 80% of our power needs in the next 30 years."

Quark Blast wrote:

I said, in effect, that it is impractical to such a degree that it's functionally impossible.

What CB did is reword and significantly subtract-from and add-to what I posted, and thus made an entirely different (and totally irrelevant) point.

The quotation is right there for anyone to read, and linked to the post where you said it.

Now you claim that the videos you posted prove your case. They don't. Neither discusses the rate of wind and solar power deployment at all. Devon notes that you are effectively pulling a 'gish gallop'... but I'd say with a twist. In the traditional case, the cited long article / video actually makes the argument being claimed. Here you seem to be just pointing at random unrelated things and saying, 'See! I am right! This video on cat dancing proves it!'.

I don't see what's wrong with that quote.

Compared to 100% replacement, 80% sounds reasonable... until you start to look at how it might actually get implemented. Then intelligent folks quickly realize that even 80% is an idea that only sounds good coming out of the end of a pipe.

You might let others know what you're smoking. Some of that's no longer illegal. I advise using the PM feature on the Forums though.

To be clear, I don't care what you smoke to come up with your fantastic visions of the future. I prefer contemplating the future I'll have to actually live in.

Thanks though!!

...<snip> painfully irrelevant stuff </snip>

So once again, no. It is not our job to make your argument.

So please tell me what your argument is, and what concrete (!) quotes from these videos support your position.

The video on the economic side of getting CO2 emissions under control (Dr. Nordhause) made several excellent points. A few, but not all, are:

Regulating carbon with crazy local/national/international laws is a total ###### waste of effort, that is ofttimes even counter productive.

Regulating carbon with crazy local/national/international pledges ( yeah Kyoto/Paris/Katowice I'm talk'n to you! ) is a total ###### waste of effort, that is ofttimes even counter productive.

A universal, non-negotiable, tax on carbon emissions is the way to go. No exceptions, no riders for farmers or fishers or... Just a straight up tax. Something well more than our current approximate $1/ton we currently have but likely less than $50/ton.

As for Dr. Palmer's presentation. Well, he essentially echoes the many salient points I have made regarding the non-computability of our global climate in the year 2100 using our current data and models.

But hey, Nobel Prize winners at Yale and Royal Society luminaries from Oxford likely don't pull much weight with my detractors on this thread so I'll let those eager to actually learn something watch the videos. The talks are quite good.

Good grief. What were they thinking?

I believe that question is a non sequitur in this case.

Orthos, you agree?

Quark Blast wrote:

That 3% you think so little of is 3% that is 100% unavailable to bolster your argument. Now I only need to show that a mere 17.1% more is unavailable among all the other factors, which I have done many times up thread, to ####can your argument.

You stated: Too many cultures rely on tourism and that means lots and lots and lots of air travel. That fact alone will keep things away from the 80% target.

Ergo, anything you imagine you can show about other factors adding up to account for >20% of emissions will not change the fact that you were wrong about "air travel ... alone" accounting for >20%.

That said, even if you WERE able to add on >17% more from other factors... that would only matter if we assumed that emissions from air travel will remain unchanged. Which may not be a safe assumption. So called 'telepresence' technologies, high speed rail, self driving cars, and even electric air travel could all cut in to air travel emissions by 2050.

Yes, yes! Why didn't I see it? Because tourism is only the price of jet/turbo-prop fuel! Duh!

OR, you might consider...

That 3% doesn't sit there in isolation. There are disruptive economic ramifications to all of these zero-emission tech rollouts. The faster you convert global humanity to them, the more disruptive things become.

You think positively, I'll give you that, but you don't think very deeply about these issues. Particularly so when you already "know" that you disagree with the conclusion being presented by the other.

Quark Blast wrote:

Why are you ignoring the fact that Norway did this by funding it with fossil fuels sales to other countries?

First, because I don't believe it is true... and second because it would be irrelevant even if it were.

It seems clear to me that Norway drove their switch over to electric vehicles by taxing gasoline use and subsidizing electric. This moved up the 'tipping point' where electric vehicles cost substantially less by several years and thus caused consumers to switch over. Nothing to do with fossil fuel sales... but if they had instead used those fossil fuel sales to pay for even steeper subsidies on electric cars to achieve the same result... so what? That still proves my point that the transition from ICEs to EVs is extremely rapid once a tipping point on cost has been reached... and thus disproves your claim that such rapid transitions are impossible.

Fine, but my point is that Norway hopped over the uncomfortable transition that you call the tipping point.

Had they needed to pay something like the real cost for that, they would still be about where France is today. Think Yellow Vest Protests.

Quark Blast wrote:

You don't understand economics at that scale. You really don't.

My opinions differ insignificantly from the likes of:
Tim Palmer on Climate Change, Chaos, and Inexact Computing

and

William Nordhause on Climate Change: The Ultimate Challenge for Economics.

Go ahead, disagree with them. I'd like to see you try. Not just spout off but actually address their perspectives and evidence.

I can't tell what you are trying to say half the time when YOU say it.

Indeed! And it's because you refuse to adopt another POV in order to understand. For someone so persistent about posting, you are amazingly recalcitrant to actually learning another persons position. Particularly when you "know" ahead of time that you disagree with the other person.

I'm not going to try to guess what part of the more than hour long Palmer video and/or half hour long Nordhaus video you think supports you... especially as neither appears to have anything to do with the 'speed of technology transition' issue we were discussing.

Oh, but these lectures/talks/Q-and-A do exactly that! These two fellows are specifically supporting my contention.

But then it's easier to complain about "wasting an hour of your life", than it is to actually learn something for a change. I'm totally sympathetic to that dodge. It's hard learning new stuff... What was it the Great Man once said, "I feel your pain".

Quark Blast wrote:

CBDunkerson wrote:

Quark Blast wrote:

and you name an example that isn't even 0.03% of the issue as a "success" story?

Did Norway hit a tipping point and rapidly shift from ICEs to EVs? Yes, yes it did. This proves my point that such rapid transitions are happening.

Why are you ignoring the fact that Norway did this by funding it with fossil fuels sales to other countries? They got a free pass and took it. Big ####### deal!

The issue is to stop producing CO2 on a global scale. Norway off-loaded their CO2 so technically it's another country that generates the CO2. They gamed the system and you're lauding their "achievements". LOL what a #######!

We are ignoring it because this is not how "offloading" works. Norway sold fossil fuels before it transitioned. Their ff-sales are entirely independent from their shift from ICEs to EVs.

Additionally, there is a difference between saying something is "easy" and something is "possible". CB had to prove that it is possible. He did this by pointing out that Norway did it. We can start a new argument about how easy it is, but please first acknowledge that it is possible.

I never said it was impossible, full-stop/can-never-happen/violates-the-laws-of-physics.

I said, in effect, that it is impractical to such a degree that it's functionally impossible.

What CB did is reword and significantly subtract-from and add-to what I posted, and thus made an entirely different (and totally irrelevant) point. Again! All the while attributing this absurdities to me.

If Norway didn't leverage it's fossil fuel largess to make the EV conversion (commitment), tell us why no other country has actually done so?

Read up on some of the salient details here:
Nine countries say they’ll ban internal combustion engines. So far, it’s just words.

Yet despite all these commitments, no country has actually passed a law prohibiting anything. ”There is literally not a single ban on the books in regulatory language that is enforceable in any auto market in the world,”

BTW - You do realize this "plan" that I'm criticizing needs to be fully rolled out globally by 2050? That's what makes it practically impossible. Timeline is way too short (as always, barring near-miracle tech being developed by 2030 or so).

Serpent Kingdoms is one of the only Realms specific books I own from 3.5.

Aside from the 2e days, when Forgotten Realms pervaded everything D&D, I didn't keep up with the lore much. What did they do to it for 4e?

They undid it for the rollout of 5e so you can just pretend it never happened*.

* Like everyone else did!
:D

But sadly, no more John Hurt...

Holy ####, John Hurt died! Like in January. Of 2017. He was the best part of Contact

Quark Blast wrote:

1) So you berate me about arguing over 3%

I didn't berate you and you didn't argue over 3%. You claimed that <3% was >20%. I corrected you.

OK, harangue me.

As a point of fact:
In order to count up to some proportion of a thing you have to have all or part of enough of the pieces to get there. That 3% you think so little of is 3% that is 100% unavailable to bolster your argument. Now I only need to show that a mere 17.1% more is unavailable among all the other factors, which I have done many times up thread, to ####can your argument.

Quark Blast wrote:

and you name an example that isn't even 0.03% of the issue as a "success" story?

Did Norway hit a tipping point and rapidly shift from ICEs to EVs? Yes, yes it did. This proves my point that such rapid transitions are happening.

Why are you ignoring the fact that Norway did this by funding it with fossil fuels sales to other countries? They got a free pass and took it. Big ####### deal!

The issue is to stop producing CO2 on a global scale. Norway off-loaded their CO2 so technically it's another country that generates the CO2. They gamed the system and you're lauding their "achievements". LOL what a #######!

:D

Quark Blast wrote:

3) This tipping point for the global energy market has to tip and the energy sector has to be 80% converted by 2050. As I said up thread: You simply can't build that much infrastructure in so short a time.

...except for all the times it has been done in the past...

You don't understand economics at that scale. You really don't.

My opinions differ insignificantly from the likes of:
Tim Palmer on Climate Change, Chaos, and Inexact Computing

and

William Nordhause on Climate Change: The Ultimate Challenge for Economics.

Go ahead, disagree with them. I'd like to see you try. Not just spout off but actually address their perspectives and evidence.

...That tipping point has already passed for some sectors in some parts of the globe (e.g. electric vehicles in Norway). Within a decade only a few countries whose economies are dependent on fossil fuels will still be holding out... and they'll all be well on their way to collapse.

There are at least three points to make against your view of things.

1) So you berate me about arguing over 3% and you name an example that isn't even 0.03% of the issue as a "success" story?

2) On top of that Norway gets all it's $$$ for the EV revolution by selling gas and oil to the rest of the world. No small irony there.

3) This tipping point for the global energy market has to tip and the energy sector has to be 80% converted by 2050. As I said up thread: You simply can't build that much infrastructure in so short a time.

You know if Germany had spent the 580 billion on nuclear instead of the solar and wind rollout they would already be 100% 'carbon free'. Instead they still use coal, and natural gas, generation.

@thejeff: While it might be smart for the major powers to simply walk away from "whole destabilized regions", you know we won't. That'll be a cluster so big I'm not even going to consider all the ramifications. You see why I hope for a near-miracle tech breakthrough.

Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron

This was a 175 page PDF (POD offer ?) by KB back in July and seems to be fairly well received but I have not read it yet. I say "yet" because my cousin is going to make the plunge into 5e for his campaign setting come the annual Christmas holiday weekender game. I'm not sure what he has planned but there will be a "world changing event" that brings our PCs into the new version of the 'verse.

WotC is doing this themselves in HC based on their usual UA playtest:
Eberron: Rising from the Last War

It'll be interesting to see what they do with this. If I'm fact-deficient in this post please correct me below.

And look! I said nothing sarcastic about the setting (looks to the sky to see if it's falling.. hmm... Nope!).

Quark Blast wrote:

I'm not surprised that all you do with your cell phone smart phone is make phone calls.

The only 'unit of work' which land line and smart phones have in common is phone calls. You claimed that smart phones cost less per unit of work. That is nonsense. They certainly do many things that land line phones don't, but that isn't the case you made.

Here's yet another example of you confusing your own incoherent thoughts for my arguments as posted in this thread.

I assume you also do this in the rest of your life and that makes me just a tiny bit sad.

Quark Blast wrote:

Those scales aren't the same. For example there's a reason why even the poorest farmers in the developing world often have cell phones and banking accounts and yet do not own a car/truck and likely never will.

So, are you saying that automobiles are a smaller scale than cell phones? By that logic, wouldn't the fossil fuel electrical grid also be a smaller scale... since many people in poor countries don't have it, but DO have cell phones? Which, in many cases, they now use solar power to charge.

Here's yet another example of you confusing your own incoherent thoughts for my arguments as posted in this thread.

I assume you also do this in the rest of your life and that makes me just a tiny bit sadder.

Quark Blast wrote:

Again, it's the amount of total infrastructure that needs to be built for solar/wind to push out fossil fuels 100%. In the next 30 years it is practically, and almost literally, impossible to build out that kind of continental scale infrastructure.

There is a vast difference between 'practically impossible for us to get to 100%' and your original claim that there is 'no way we get to 80%'.

We haven't 100% eliminated horse drawn carriages, manual saws, slide rules, or land line phones either. 'Re-framing' your position to a standard that high essentially concedes the point.

Oh we won't make it to 80% by the year 2050. That's my prognostication. And that's just North America (sorry Canada, you're part of the ol' US of A).

China? Also "no way".

India? "No way".

Europe? Insignificantly different from "no way". Oh, they'll say nice words (and mean them I expect!! ) but they won't get there either.

Too many cultures rely on tourism and that means lots and lots and lots of air travel. That fact alone will keep things away from the 80% target.

Then you add in all the other factors - lobbying by fossil fuel interests not least and their natural allies* - and 80% is untenable even if we agree that the science works out.

Pushing out non-Water/Wind/Solar power 100%? Well not even the science is going to back you there without imagining some sort of fantasy setting.

* You keep telling "those people" in the Yellow Vests that they need to pay their fair share of fuel taxes and see how far you get with your Green New Deal.
:D

So is that a no, QB?

Affirmative on that negative!

:D

You make this too easy.

:D

Quark Blast wrote:

Those items you list, they were cheaper to build and maintain per unit of work by a long shot.

Smart phones cost less (or less 'per call') than land line phones?

I'm not surprised that all you do with your cell phone smart phone is make phone calls.

Quark Blast wrote:

Secondly, it's a matter of scale. And you can't scale to something that large that quickly. Never been done.

Other than the four examples I already provided and dozens of others.

Those scales aren't the same. For example there's a reason why even the poorest farmers in the developing world often have cell phones and banking accounts and yet do not own a car/truck and likely never will.

Computers? Artificial intelligence? You really can't see that rapid global scale technology transformations happen all the time?

How about the reverse? Can you cite an example where one technology started to replace another and then stopped/greatly slowed because of raw materials shortages?

Again, it's the amount of total infrastructure that needs to be built for solar/wind to push out fossil fuels 100%. In the next 30 years it is practically, and almost literally, impossible to build out that kind of continental scale infrastructure.

Will it happen eventually?

Yes.

Will it happen in time to keep the year 2100 at or below +1.5°C over preindustrial average global temp?

No ####### way!

Will it happen in time to keep the year 2100 at or below +2.0°C over preindustrial average global temp?

See the previous answer.

Will it happen in time to keep the year 2100 at or below +2.5°C over preindustrial average global temp?

Maybe. We'll know by 2030 or so for sure (barring scalable, near-miracle energy and/or CC&S tech being invented before 2050 or so).

Quark Blast wrote:

<sagacious musings> ...

Ah, but as one could read from a slightly less recent post of mine, there is simply no way, no way, we can scale wind and solar to meet even 80% of our power needs in the next 30 years.

It doesn't matter how cheap it is. It's a matter of scale. Not even China is building infrastructure that fast.

Let's live in Fantasy Land for a hypotheoretical moment and imagine we are going to build out wind/solar infrastructure that fast.

What would happen?

Well, one thing that would happen is a hellacious spike in commodity prices associated with building continental scale wind and solar projects in short order.

So?

Well, prices spike and suddenly it's not so cheap to build and the pace slows back to something actually imaginable.

Yep.

That's why it took so long for cheap automobiles to replace horse drawn carriages.
Or chain saws to replace manual cutting.
Or calculators to replace slide rules.
Or smart phones to replace land lines.
Or...

There is no reasonable case to be made for wind and/or solar rollout being slowed by lack of required resources... which is why this argument originates entirely from disinformation blogs and other sources with a similar history of false and unsupported claims.

Those items you list, they were cheaper to build and maintain per unit of work by a long shot.

Not the incremental, a few percentage points edge, that solar and wind have over natural gas. Which is the actual subject at hand.

CB's attempted handwavery = Fail!

Secondly, it's a matter of scale. And you can't scale to something that large that quickly. Never been done. Not even by China.

As for your attempt to discredit this argument by spurious association with odd places on the Interwebs, know this first:
That idea comes from a reputably sourced scientific paper first brought to my attention by some cranky dude who goes by CB. Just say'n...

:D

You don't want to release content faster than players can consume or play said content.

Too late!

:D

Quark Blast wrote:

"My suggestion"? Oh no! It was the author's suggestion in the paper cited.

You cited the article and stated, "That is a more pedestrian example of why I don't put much stock in particular predictions from climate models."

So yes, YOU, not anyone else, suggested that the complexities in estimating the future of sea ice within the Arctic archipelago was a valid reason for dismissing other predictions from climate models.

That is the equivalent of saying that our inability to predict where lightning will strike tomorrow also means that we should discount the weather model prediction of rain. Some details are more complex than others... inability to predict one has no bearing on our ability to predict others.

In other news, Wind power now costs less than natural gas everywhere in the US. Solar is still only cheaper than natural gas for most of the country... but between these facts it seems clear that natural gas can no longer compete.

I hate to repeat myself but, for thejeff, just now we saw another perfect example of CB misreading my post.

As I said recently,
"As anyone can see in my previous post, they aren't even sure which century!! the NW Passage will be reliably open.

No, no, no... We aren't talking weather. We are most certainly talking climate."

As for wind and solar:

No on the first for most large scale installations. Soon maybe but not yet.

As for solar, well yeah but...

"But what?", you say.

Ah, but as one could read from a slightly less recent post of mine, there is simply no way, no way, we can scale wind and solar to meet even 80% of our power needs in the next 30 years.

It doesn't matter how cheap it is. It's a matter of scale. Not even China is building infrastructure that fast.

Let's live in Fantasy Land for a hypotheoretical moment and imagine we are going to build out wind/solar infrastructure that fast.

What would happen?

Well, one thing that would happen is a hellacious spike in commodity prices associated with building continental scale wind and solar projects in short order.

So?

Well, prices spike and suddenly it's not so cheap to build and the pace slows back to something actually imaginable.