So, the IPCC report has come out. Not surprisingly, we're totally f*+!ed.
I'd previously thought that I was likely to be dead by the time things got really bad (I'm 62). I now think that less likely :-(.
The summary is well worth reading.
pauljathome wrote: So, the IPCC report has come out. Not surprisingly, we're totally f*%+ed.
I'd previously thought that I was likely to be dead by the time things got really bad (I'm 62). I now think that less likely :-(.
The summary is well worth reading.
Things will only get "really bad" in your lifetime if nations go to war over the various economic hardships and related issues. Inflation, which some say is 'temporary' but sure doesn't look that way to me, will be screwing up the efforts to combat AGW. People get cranky when you take away their privileges (as we saw with the Yellow Vest protests for example).
As for the IPCC report:
Funny how they don't see these two statements confounding the effort:
IPCC wrote: The report provides new estimates of the chances of crossing the global warming level of 1.5°C in the next decades, and finds that unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach. Along with this:
IPCC wrote: While benefits for air quality would come quickly, it could take 20-30 years to see global temperatures stabilize. There have been "protests" in the streets of major western cities over COVID-19 lockdowns after only a year. Telling people they need to wait 30 years to see a temperature benefit will be a hard sell. And by "hard sell" I mean impossible.
.
IPCC wrote: Cumulative CO2 emissions are kept within a budget by reducing global annual CO2 emissions to net zero. This assessment suggests a remaining budget of about 420 GtCO2 for a two-thirds chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C, and of about 580 GtCO2 for an even chance (medium confidence).
The remaining carbon budget is defined here as cumulative CO2 emissions from the start of 2018 until the time of net zero global emissions for global warming defined as a change in global near-surface air temperatures.
Remaining budgets applicable to 2100 would be approximately 100 GtCO2 lower than this to account for permafrost thawing and potential methane release from wetlands in the future, and more thereafter.
These estimates come with an additional geophysical uncertainty of at least ±400 GtCO2, related to non-CO2 response and TCRE distribution. Uncertainties in the level of historic warming contribute ±250 GtCO2. In addition, these estimates can vary by ±250 GtCO2 depending on non-CO2 mitigation strategies as found in available pathways.
Do I read that right? We have a remaining "budget" of 420 GtCO2; -100 GtCO2 for permafrost melting contributions (at least); ±900 GtCO2 of additional uncertainty?
So we are presently somewhere between 680 GtCO2 over "budget" and having 1420 GtCO2 left in the "budget"?
Which is to say, we screwed the pooch circa 1999 or have until at least 2050 before we need to start getting serious. They need to be more clear about the confidence intervals around this range. And they are, but it's buried deep and not easy to estimate based on the present report.
.
BIG Drip....
CCN wrote: Methane levels are now higher than at any point in the past 800,000 years and are well above the safe limits outlined in AR5. Methane, which is released into the atmosphere from abandoned coal mines, farming and oil and gas operations, has a global warming impact 84 times higher than CO2 over a 20-year period. It is responsible for almost a quarter of global warming....
Despite its global warming impact, methane has received far less attention than CO2 and is not included in most countries’ climate pledges.
“A sharp reduction in methane would give you a short-term win, but it has largely been ignored by governments to date, all the focus has been on CO2 net zero targets,” said Richard Black, senior associate at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).
So "methane has received far less attention"?
This is one of those unintended consequences. Limiting NH4 is on the level of "no-brainer" - improves air quality, reduces inefficiencies in systems that emit NH4, increases profits if implemented intelligently, and is generally easy to do. But naw, we'd rather (e.g.) shutdown the Keystone XL pipeline - thus pushing oil transport over to rail cars (which increases pollution and other environmental risks), and forces production over to countries like Russia who don't give a tinkers darn about NH4 emissions.
We should make more decisions like this, no?
Definitely, NO!
Forbes wrote: This current climate report focuses on 5 separate climate scenarios, as driven by carbon emissions:
SSP1-1.9, designed to limit temperatures in 2100 to below 1.5 °C warming,
SSP1-2.6, a slightly more plausible low-end emissions scenario,
SSP2-4.5, a realistic scenario assuming that current policies are successfully implemented worldwide,
SSP3-7.0, a high-end emissions pathway where emissions slowly increase and have doubled by century's end, and
SSP3-8.5, a more pessimistic high-emissions scenario.
In each of these 5 scenarios, it's estimated that the Earth will warm by:
SSP1-1.9 -- +1.4°C,
SSP1-2.6 -- +1.8°C,
SSP2-4.5 -- +2.7°C,
SSP3-7.0 -- +3.6°C,
SSP3-8.5 -- +4.4°C,
My money is on SSP2-4.5, "a realistic scenario assuming that current policies are successfully implemented worldwide". I'm biased towards this one as it comes closest to my long-standing prediction of +2.5°C for the year 2100.
The good news is that the state of climate science projects a "very likely" range (~90% confidence) of +2.0°C to +5.0°C by the year 2100.
Without scalable fusion reaction and/or near-miracle battery storage we have essentially no chance of hitting the lower end of that range.
pauljathome wrote: So, the IPCC report has come out. Not surprisingly, we're totally f+&#ed.
I'd previously thought that I was likely to be dead by the time things got really bad (I'm 62). I now think that less likely :-(.
The summary is well worth reading.
I thought about this some more (and my glib answer in the previous post) and I still think, barring global war kind of stuff, that you'll miss the worst of things AGW related.
I know Philip Mote* and many other leading climate scientists have been surprised about how quickly things have swung extreme. But there certainly are confounding factors - people building in flood plains and 100 years of fire suppression with attendant fuel buildup as just two examples. One other thing to watch is China/India and especially their use of coal. I know "everyone has to do their part"++ but if all China and India do is talk about getting off of coal for another decade or three, then our meager extra efforts will be spit in the wind.
* "I've been involved with climate research for 23 years, and I honestly didn't think it would get this bad this fast. This isn't really news to anyone who have been studying this for a while, but it's depressing to see it coming true."
++ Speaking of depressing - the best of our "betters" continue to engage in absolutely asinine activities like flying private jets to a massive maskless B-Day party, thus lifting their proverbial kilts at all us commoners as we wail and lament while trying to save up enough to one day buy an EV to help save the planet.
Here's an interesting result for nuclear fusion:
NIF Test Hits 70%
This is not a "we've got this" result but given 50+ years of sub-5% results (and mostly sub-1% test results when things weren't a total bust), this is huge and I'll wager a direct result of high speed computing advances.
SN wrote: In 2018, researchers began seeing the payoff of those efforts. NIF achieved a then-record fusion energy of 55,000 joules. Then, in spring 2021, NIF reached 170,000 joules. Further tweaking the design of the experiment, scientists suspected, could increase the output even more. But the new experiment went beyond expectations, producing nearly eight times the energy of the previous effort. Between this, SPARC, the EU Tokamak and other efforts, it looks like we've finally hit the inflection point on the proverbial hockey stick.
So Germany is considered a "world champion" for recycling. But then the DW illuminates The Recycling Myth, which explains in about 15 minutes why I haven't bothered* in years now. To be sure, the situation isn't any better in the USA. As one top comment says, "I worked at a recycling plant. We only resold half what we received after grinding plastics or shredding and compressing paper products, but alot of the mixed stuff, and all medical products went to the landfill. I always figured factories used our service so they could claim all waste is recycled and let us throw it away.
Compared to GND-level projects recycling is simple and if the "best" countries in the world can't get recycling right it seems reasonable to predict the AGW mitigation projects won't do what they are purported to do. Especially when one considers that it is among "not the best" countries that our global CO2 future mostly rests on.
.
Looking at just one part of the problem, TechCrunch has a feature piece on The Tough Calculus of Emissions and the Future of EVs. No doubt the author has his biases but he makes some valid points.
TC wrote: The issue is not primarily about the emissions resulting from producing electricity. Instead, it’s what we know and don’t know about what happens before an EV is delivered to a customer, namely, the “embodied” emissions arising from the labyrinthine supply chains to obtain and process all the materials needed to fabricate batteries....
While an EV self-evidently emits nothing while driving, about 80% of its total lifetime emissions arise from the combination of the embodied energy in fabricating the battery and then in “fabricating” electricity to power the vehicle....
For example, one review of 50 academic studies found estimates for embodied emissions to fabricate a single EV battery ranged from a low of about eight tons to as high as 20 tons of CO2. Another recent technical analysis put the range at about four to 14 tons. The high end of those ranges is nearly as much CO2 as is produced by the lifetime of fuel burned by an efficient conventional car. Again, that’s before the EV is delivered to a customer and driven its first mile.
A further criticism not seen in this article is the subsidies for EVs benefiting relatively wealthy people. A $9,000 tax rebate on a luxury car really doesn't tempt the guy driving his 2012 Ford Taurus, now does it?
.
TC wrote: Manufacturers offset some of a battery’s weight penalty by lightening the rest of the EV using more aluminum or carbon fiber instead of steel. Unfortunately, those materials are respectively 300% and 600% more energy intensive per pound to produce than steel. Using a half ton of aluminum, common in many EVs, adds six tons of CO2 to the non-battery embodied emissions (a factor most analyses ignore). But it’s with all the other elements, the ones needed to fabricate the battery itself, where the emissions accounting gets messy. Like our "world's best" plastic recycling programs the average consumer will, by design, see only the lack of tailpipe on EVs and believe things are just going great.
.
TC wrote: Consider the key elements in the widely used nickel-cobalt formulation. A typical 1,000-pound EV battery contains about 30 pounds of lithium, 60 pounds of cobalt, 130 pounds of nickel, 190 pounds of graphite and 90 pounds of copper. (The balance of the weight is with steel, aluminum and plastic.)
Uncertainties in the embodied energy begin with the ore grade (the share of rock that contains each target mineral). Ore grades can range from a few percent to as little as 0.1% depending on the mineral, the mine and over time. Using today’s averages, the quantity of ore mined — necessarily using energy-intensive heavy equipment — for one single EV battery is about: 10 tons of lithium brines to get to the 30 pounds of lithium; 30 tons of ore to get 60 pounds of cobalt; five tons for the 130 pounds of nickel; six tons for the 90 pounds of copper; and about one ton of ore for the 190 pounds of graphite.
Then, one must add to that tonnage the “overburden,” the amount of earth that’s first removed in order to access the mineral-bearing ore. That quantity also varies widely, depending on ore type and geology, typically from about three to seven tons excavated to access one ton of ore. Putting all the factors together, fabricating a single half-ton EV battery can entail digging up and moving a total of about 250 tons of earth. After that, an aggregate total of roughly 50 tons of ore are transported and processed to separate out the targeted minerals.
Embodied energy is also impacted by a mine’s location, something that is in theory knowable today but is a guessing game regarding the future. Remote mining sites typically involve more trucking and depend on more off-grid electricity, the latter commonly supplied by diesel generators. As it stands today, the mineral sector alone accounts for nearly 40% of global industrial energy use. And over one-half of the world’s batteries, or the key battery chemicals, are produced in Asia with its coal-dominated electric grids. Despite hopes for more factories in Europe and North America, every forecast sees Asia utterly dominating that supply chain for a long time.
I can barely imagine the documentation needed to track the real CO2 cost of EVs through the supply chain. It'll be far easier, and no doubt more accurate, to simply watch the results from the Mauna Loa observatory.
.
TC wrote: To illustrate the ultimate scale of demand that EV mandates alone will place on mining, consider that a world with 500 million electric cars — which would still constitute under half of all vehicles .... For the record, that many EVs would eliminate only about 15% of world oil use. As you can see the problem is one of scale, and while costs/unit typically go down as you scale up, for the EV market most of the theoretical engineering efficiency savings have already been achieved. Meaning things will continue to cost this much, or more, going forward. Ramping up quickly enough to meet the +1.5°C Paris Agreement target will surely put price pressures on the commodities embedded in EV products - Copper, Lithium, Cobalt, etc. and those aren't costs that can be controlled with increases in manufacturing efficiencies. As TechCrunch notes,
"Commercially viable combustion engines already exist that can cut fuel use by as much as 50%. Capturing just half that potential by providing incentives for consumers to purchase more efficient engines would be cheaper, faster — and transparently verifiable — than adding 300 million EVs to the world’s roads."
.
* Excepting metal cans and glass as I'm fairly certain at least half of those receive proper recycling.
Climate change is accelerating, according to comprehensive study
PhysOrg wrote: There is an emerging consensus among simulations of future climate under strong greenhouse gas emissions with the most recent generation of climate models that the variability of future El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) sea surface temperature may increase as the climate warms.
"There is however still much uncertainty on the degree to which ENSO may change and the time at which these potential changes will emerge from ENSO's natural variability," said Karamperidou. "This is partly due to incomplete understanding of the phenomenon, partly due to known limitations of models in representing and resolving relevant processes, and partly due to the inherent limitations on our understanding imposed by the short length of the instrumental record."
Additionally, led by researchers at the IBS Center for Climate Physics in Korea, Stuecker co-authored another study published in Nature Climate Change that produced a series of global climate model simulations with unprecedented spatial resolution. Boosted by the power of one of South Korea's fastest supercomputers (Aleph), the new ultra-high-resolution simulations realistically represented processes that are usually missing from other models, though they play fundamental roles in the generation and termination of El Niño and La Niña events.
"From this highest resolution future climate model simulation that has been done to date, we conclude that it's possible that ENSO variability could collapse under strong greenhouse warming in the future," said Stuecker.
So, as I've said previously many times up thread:
As our ability to improve the accuracy of our climate models increases the resulting model outcomes will be worse and not better for the year 2100 outcome. This has been a trend in climate modeling for at least half a century. High speed computing has gotten so cheap over the last decade that one can almost see this phenomenon working itself out in real time as we read from one article to the next.
‘Groundhog Day has to end’: Australia plots path beyond ‘covid zero’ and lockdowns
WP wrote: With cases showing little sign of coming down, McLaws said she and Berejiklian agreed on one thing: Australia’s covid zero ambitions are over. Should've focused on vaccinations while protecting the most vulnerable. Even the most isolated places like New Zealand are having a time with the Delta variant and in the mean time their economy is getting hammered. In Sweden this Delta wave is the least damaging. Compare that to many places in the USA which are having the worst surge yet with the Delta Variant - from the blue-and-locked-down Hawaii to red-and-open Texas.
Why bring up the Coronavirus here, again?
Because there is darn little international cooperation/coordination on this very scientifically amendable problem. Yet.... yet.... on a global scale it's still a total cluster.
What makes anyone thing AGW will be easier to manage? Why?
.
Leaked IPCC draft: Lifestyle change can cut double the emissions of Brazil by 2030
So this group of disobedient scientists has justified the leak of early next year's official IPCC Report:
"We leaked the report because governments – pressured and bribed by fossil fuel and other industries, protecting their failed ideology and avoiding accountability – have edited the conclusions before official reports were released in the past."
I flatly disavow criminal activity in support of this cause; if any such activities were engaged in to leak the report.
At the same time I recognize that those scientists involved in this leak are 100% correct in their thinking - specifically, thinking that the past actions are a good predictor of future actions for official IPCC reporting.
Some people on this thread are worried what the whole AGW thing is going to mean for their children. I think that's short-sighted. This issue will be both an enormous economic and climate burden on their grandchildren and great grandchildren. After that, barring global thermonuclear war, I think the remaining members of our species will have things worked out and we will be living comfortably in a warmer world and/or gliding to a mitigation of the global climate because we've gotten nuclear fusion out of the realm of theory and into the realm of engineering.
Drip....
.
Britain Starts Coal Plant After Gas Prices Surge
WashEx wrote: Wind power produces energy for Britain but at a varying rate. Monday morning's power report showed wind power produced 474 megawatts, much less than the 14,286 megawatts that wind power produced on May 21.
Gas prices have also led to a return to coal as the price for gas has now jumped to £219.46 ($303) per megawatt-hour on Monday morning, according to Bloomberg. The result has forced Britain to return to using coal in order to keep up with its energy demands.
Now multiply this by a dozen such events a year for the next twenty. Then multiply that result by the nations of the G20. Add in some hefty additional numbers for lying by the CCP and whatever it is the countries of Africa, the Middle East, and eastern Europe actually end up doing.
Now imagine what's left of our CO2 "budget" by 2040. It'll be gone before 2030 of course but imagine the deficit. That's why the IPCC is likely spot on with the model result known as SSP2-4.5, "a realistic scenario assuming* that current policies are successfully implemented worldwide".
* That's quite a large assumption but I'll let it stand simply because it establishes a very reasonable floor temperature for the year 2100.
Removed some posts. This is a tough topic to discuss, but we need to do so politely and without personal attacks. Thanks!
|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Tonya Woldridge wrote: Removed some posts. This is a tough topic to discuss, but we need to do so politely and without personal attacks. Thanks! I stopped by because I saw someone new posting, now seeing that it’s a mod I think the question is - wouldn’t it be better to just lock this one? Real discussion has been bullied and one user is using it as their personal blog to discuss whatever antigovernment article they can shoehorn into a climate change narrative.
It will never be productive not matter how much you moderate it at this point.
dirtypool wrote: Tonya Woldridge wrote: Removed some posts. This is a tough topic to discuss, but we need to do so politely and without personal attacks. Thanks! I stopped by because I saw someone new posting, now seeing that it’s a mod I think the question is - wouldn’t it be better to just lock this one? Real discussion has been bullied and one user is using it as their personal blog to discuss whatever antigovernment article they can shoehorn into a climate change narrative.
It will never be productive not matter how much you moderate it at this point. While I appreciate your feedback, I'm going to give it a bit of time.
If there are people wanting a discussion, then we will leave it open as long as it remains civil.
If it isn't a discussion, the thread will end naturally.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Tonya Woldridge wrote: dirtypool wrote: Tonya Woldridge wrote: Removed some posts. This is a tough topic to discuss, but we need to do so politely and without personal attacks. Thanks! I stopped by because I saw someone new posting, now seeing that it’s a mod I think the question is - wouldn’t it be better to just lock this one? Real discussion has been bullied and one user is using it as their personal blog to discuss whatever antigovernment article they can shoehorn into a climate change narrative.
It will never be productive not matter how much you moderate it at this point. While I appreciate your feedback, I'm going to give it a bit of time.
If there are people wanting a discussion, then we will leave it open as long as it remains civil.
If it isn't a discussion, the thread will end naturally.
It devolves into bouts of incivility routines. I expect you would have to scroll back quite far to find a productive conversation
MIT Scientists Report 'Major Advance' In Fusion Energy
VICE wrote: This week, scientists at MIT got a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet to a strength of 20 tesla. That’s the most powerful magnetic field of its kind ever created on Earth....
On August 9, government scientists working at the National Ignition Facility in California shot 192 lasers at a BB-size capsule and generated 1.3 megajoules of energy, roughly five times the energy that was absorbed. Researchers working for General Atomics have constructed a six-story magnet with plans to use it to achieve nuclear fusion. Last year, scientists in Italy recreated nuclear fusion from the big bang under a mountain in Italy.
In the last two years we've had more measurable success in fusion development than the previous fifty. They've got twenty years or so to scale one or more of these ideas into commercial success and GHG emissions get reduced to a tractable engineering problem.
Glasgow Climate Summit at Risk of Failure, U.N. Chief Warns
Warns us huh? Why? Like we can do anything about it. This die was cast over 20 years ago.
Reuters wrote: "My objective and the reason why we are convening a meeting on Monday is exactly to build trust, to allow for everybody to understand that we all need to do more," Guterres said.
"We need the developed countries to do more, namely in relation to the support to developing countries. And we need some emerging economies to go an extra mile and be more ambitious in the reduction of air emissions," he said
For starters* we could tell our "United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate" to stop gallivanting around the globe and learn how to use Zoom.
Reuters wrote: Guterres played down the impact that the increasingly rancorous relationship between China and the United States - the world's two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases - will have on their cooperation on climate change. read more
"They are a multilateral issue," said Guterres. "So my appeal to both the United States and China is for each of them to do their part."
Ah yes, say "Halt!" and if they don't stop, the UN will say "Halt!" again. That'll teach them. China will be on board by the holidays for sure now.
:D
* Totally NOT being sarcastic here. Conspicuous hypocrisy is a terrible way to move things forward. No really!
So we've got oil looking at $80/barrel, the Australian coal export restrictions to China helping to cause some production mayhem whilst still seeing double digit power generation increases 2019-to-2021, and a less than stellar transition away from fossil fuels wanting to create a 300% natural gas price increase for the EU; perhaps more depending on how mild this winter turns out to be.
With real inflation approaching 10% for this year, the increased costs for energy (think: heating/cooling and transportation) will primarily impact the poorer half of our citizenry. That's totally awesome! Nothing warms the cockles like sticking it to the little guys. /s
Sarcasm aside, balancing out supply and demand in the energy markets while we make the multi-decadal transition to 'green' energy will take unprecedented levels of planning and control. Given that even China can't get it right, I'd say the 'West' will be even more unlikely to make it smooth. Rough transitions are costly and after a few costly FUBARs the pressure to play it safe will overwhelm the climate science. So, like China, our GHG emissions in the 'West' will follow a grossly uneven downward trend that nonetheless far exceeds the targeted +1.5°C and will certainly pass the +2.0°C level and likely settle in somewhere at or just over the +2.5°C level.
China's Power Crunch Puts Global Economy on Red Alert
"Red Alert"? I see what you did there.... very clever Mr. Wallace. Srsly though, the hangover from these self-imposed energy deficits won't be voluntarily lasting much longer unless the global economy evinces a phase transition into this new state of energy-deficit chaos. If that happens ( or has happened but we don't yet realize it) things will be far more unknowable than we are used to.
.
In related news, India's Solar Energy Output Growth Slows in September
Instability in the transition, along with the concomitant push to consumers of the increased costs, will likely be short lived. An easy answer to the relatively quick end of this energy transition induced chaos will be to burn more coal. The coal power plants are ready now to alleviate the deficit in power demand and Australia are happy to supply it. A "green" solution is a decade or three away, depending on how well things go with the infrastructure build-out. Right now though, building out the infrastructure is a ship anchored by output from China of key building blocks.
.
Reuters wrote: "Renewable energy will not be available early in the day and immediately after sunset, when power demand generally peaks during winter in India," a Singapore-based power sector analyst said.
Victor Vanya, director at power analytics firm EMA Solutions, said higher humidity in the coming weeks could lead to a surge in power demand driven by higher air-conditioning requirements, and a rapid deterioration in coal stocks.
"If humidity remains high in the next 2 weeks, there is a highly probability for India to end up in a 'China-like scenario'," he told Reuters. Coal supply shortages in China have led to power restrictions in parts of the country.
With industrial output under curtailment in the world's largest manufacturing economy (China), and in serious danger here in the world's second largest country, the chaos will continue to have global repercussions outside of GHG emissions. Promises or not at COP26 will mean very little if things are not going smoothly. And things indeed aren't going smoothly, nor are they likely to under the current 'plan' as we peer forward into the next 30-odd years.
India is definitely doubling down on coal, and who can blame them?
.
And here's something new to science but not clearly captured with the standard panoply of climate models used by the IPCC (yet another one of those many expected pesky factors that push the average global temperature for the year 2100 yet a little higher):
Earth is Dimming Due to Climate Change.
PhyOrg wrote: For some time, many scientists had hoped that a warmer Earth might lead to more clouds and higher albedo, which would then help to moderate warming and balance the climate system, he said. "But this shows the opposite is true." Not the end of the debate over clouds/albedo/and AGW but.... a bummer result dudes.
Sabine Hossenfelder is classically pessimistic regarding the nuclear fusion angle. She makes a simple math argument that sounds pretty convincing on it's own but she leaves out the context of how a utility scale endeavor would compare to these (relatively simple) proof of concept research projects.
Still, not a hopeful collection of factoids.
Energy Crisis Sets Stage for Record Global Carbon Emissions
Bloomberg wrote: Emissions from electricity producers were already up 2.2% globally between January and August versus the same period in 2019, driven by increases in China, India and Brazil, Carbon Monitor data shows. "China, India and Brazil"? Interesting, it's almost as if anything we in the "West" could do is statistically irrelevant in the face of what the other countries are actually doing.
I find it curious that there is little discussion (none really) on why CO2 in the atmosphere actually increased in 2020. Anthropogenically sourced CO2 emissions were down globally yet the atmospheric total continued to increase unabated. Why aren't news articles, especially "science" articles, covering this?
Is it because the science is "hard" and people would not read the articles, thus getting less clicks (i.e. less MONEY for the "news" entity)?
Is it because the plain truth would be too discouraging and not serve the ends being promoted? Which is really about money, again.
I also note a decided current silence on the idea of a carbon "budget". Spending it now means not having it to spend, or preferably save, for later. We already know, from previous items linked recently up-thread, that the +2.0°C year 2100 will be locked in circa 2030 even with the various proposed GND investments going forward without unavoidable delays. And now, with this global energy crisis forcing major economies to push subsidies/caps to keep fossil fuel prices from raging higher, it's moved into the realm of possibility that 2030 will see the target in its rear-view mirror.
You know, the lack of a smart grid and, e.g., CAs effective doubling the cost to install rooftop solar*, all work to push out the point at which we stop spending the carbon "budget". So, bit by incremental bit, global humanity's actions insure we spend well past the targeted amount, and sooner rather than later.
Like Tesla's Model 3, now in excess of $43k for the base model delivered and costing $20k more for things as basic as the extended range, we keep getting hyped up news bits of flashy items while avoiding the reality of the topics being covered. While there are vehicles available for under $40k (by Kia and VW), they are just under $40k and again with upgrades most anyone would want/need they hop deftly over that amount.
Furthermore, there are other considerations for a huge chunk of the potential EV market. Like how are you going to charge that thing? Older houses, which are most houses, have limited Amp connections that would need anywhere from $5k to $20k in upgrades before one could charge a new Tesla purchase. Is that factored into the real cost of EV ownership? Not typically. What about the EV version of the "gas tax" needed in most areas to maintain the roads all types of vehicles use? Typically? Yeah, not so much talk on that topic either.
What this all adds up to is that EVs are still effectively luxury purchases for the wealthy few and not yet part of a useful AGW solution. Where we are at today is where we should've been at circa 2005.
* and let's not even get into the Tesla solar roof debacle that anyone with an ounce of sense could see coming
So this is an interesting pod-cast interview: Human-caused Climate Change is Already Impacting 85% of Global Population
For the main topic it's telling us nothing surprising but one thing Richard Alley (@PSU) mentions, in this^ short 05:07 piece, is that the key insight seen in the global temperature range of the various climate models is all on the downside. Or as he says towards the end of the interview:
"The uncertainties in climate science tend to be mostly on the bad side. It could be a little better than we're expecting, it could be a little worse, or we could break something we really care about and it could be a lot worse. And there isn't so much a lot better to balance the a lot worse. So if we let climate change run ahead the uncertainties look very risky. That's on ecosystems burning and not growing back, and it's on societies getting mad at each other... whether we get mad at each other is maybe the most important question."
This is what I've been saying for years now. Circa 2015 I came to the realization, after studying climate science formally and informally while pursuing my education, I noticed that through time, as our climate models improve and take stock of more variables - including previously unknown variables - the unwavering trend has been that the new understanding favors the worse outcome.
Staying below a +2.0°C year 2100 is really a "best case" scenario. It's also a very unlikely case! Exactly how unlikely is hard to say because the global climate is a chaotic system with an enormous number of causal parameters. But one thing is clear, it is a vanishingly small likelihood that things will turn out for the better without scaled nuclear fusion or other near-miracle tech bailing us out.
China Rethinks Path to Climate Goals Due to Energy Crisis
No kidding!?!
:D
This is another case of burn fossil fuels now. The path they've chosen, the path of economic growth, is giving them exactly the result one would prognosticate. India will do the same thing. Heck, even the USA is doing the same*, only for a shorter duration. Still, spending the CO2 "budget" now instead of never - not a good plan people, not a good plan.
* U.S. power plants are on track to burn 23% more coal this year, the first increase since 2013, despite {the} ambitious plan to eliminate carbon emissions from the power grid.
|
6 people marked this as a favorite.
|
At this point, there is no discussion ongoing, so I'm going to close this thread.
Recent threads in Off-Topic Discussions
|
Director of Community
