Terrinam wrote: This site is a bit of a nightmare to peruse in its current format, and I've been busy with life.
Irontruth wrote: The US plant has fewer reactors, but the size of the reactors is larger than the ones in Canada, on par with some of the reactors in Japan, and bigger than others. Don't confuse "installed" with "individual reactor". 8,900Mw installed is actually the result of multiple reactors, not one big one (usually 8-10).
Nuclear accidents are horrific and have tremendous long term consequences. Global warming is not one of those consequences. Except maybe as a secondary effect as nuclear power plants are replaced with coal or natural gas.
Total output from the reactors, combined with the basic calculation of how much fuel has to be involved to generate that much energy, is what matters. Then multiply that by the number of reactors necessary for a population of around ten billion, as opposed to the current minority input that nuclear power has.
You're focusing on what is. My argument is about what will be.
I'm pointing out that your argument about the consequences of a nuclear meltdown is fictional, and ignores the other very bad consequences of that event.
A nuclear meltdown is a horrific event. Global warming is horrific as well, but that does not mean it is a possible consequence of a simultaneous meltdown of nuclear reactors for 10 billion people.
If all of the world's electricity (18 terawatts) were quintupled (say top energy usage stays the same, but population and lower income users catch up), so that world's population now consumes 90 terawatts of energy each year. Now lets assume that ALL of that electricity comes from nuclear power. Then lets assume that a melted down reactor produces the double that heat in raw energy while it is in runaway production. Then lets assume that ALL of the reactors simultaneously melt down.
Thats 180 terawatts of additional energy to the Earth's energy budget, or a 0.103% increase.
Lets round our current global average temperature up to 60 degrees, a 0.103% increase would net us a new global average of 60.6 degrees.
Your fear of global warming from melted down nuclear reactors is silly.
The environmental impact would be horrendous, but it would not be because the global temperature increased.
Note that the 'waste heat from mass nuclear reactor meltdowns' would also be temporary. Over and done within a couple of years... and thus no long term impact on global temperatures. Nothing like the long term warming caused by increased atmospheric carbon levels.
Ongoing active reactors could maintain warming, but there is no currently workable nuclear power technology which could run sufficient amounts of nuclear power to generate waste heat on levels remotely comparable with current global warming for several years... let alone the millennia that warming from increased CO2 will last.
Yup, the primary thing to consider is how much energy it takes to warm the Earth by 1 degree. Man-made methods of heat PRODUCTION just aren't able to scale to that level, which includes nuclear reactors in meltdown mode.
CO2 isn't heat PRODUCTION, but rather traps a certain amount of energy that is already here. The Sun dwarfs any other heat source on the planet, and so increasing how much of that energy gets trapped within our atmosphere is a much bigger deal.
Nuclear waste doesn't trap heat from the Sun in our atmosphere. Therefore the amount required to increase Earth's temperature would have to produce heat within a couple order of magnitudes of what we receive from the Sun in order to have a significant impact.
None of this is to say that nuclear waste isn't dangerous. It is. It is extremely hazardous. But global warming is not one of those hazards.
Check this out!
Climate Change Can Be Stopped by Turning Air Into Gasoline
So maybe this beats out my wan hope for the salvation of Nuclear Fusion.
The company that is promoting this idea (the next Theranos? LOL): Carbon Engineering
Cool idea.
Fingers crossed.
Sucking carbon out of the atmosphere isn't a new idea, but if they've really found a way to bring costs down as much as claimed then it may well become cheaper to get future gasoline, jet fuel, and other carbon products by pulling them out of the atmosphere than doing so from the ground.
Satellites Track Vanishing Antarctic Ice
”Scripps” wrote: In the Amundsen Sea, for example, ice-shelf thinning of up to six meters (20 feet) per year has triggered a 1.5-kilometer (1-mile) -per-year acceleration of the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers. These glaciers have the potential to raise sea levels by more than a meter, and are now widely considered to be unstable. Antarctic ice loss has tripled in a decade. If that continues, we are in serious trouble.
”WP” wrote: Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting at a rapidly increasing rate, now pouring more than 200 billion tons of ice into the ocean annually and raising sea levels a half-millimeter every year, a team of 80 scientists reported Wednesday.
The melt rate has tripled in the past decade, the study concluded. If the acceleration continues, some of scientists’ worst fears about rising oceans could be realized, leaving low-lying cities and communities with less time to prepare than they had hoped...<snip-rearrange>
Antarctica, the planet’s largest ice sheet, lost 219 billion tons of ice annually from 2012 through 2017 — approximately triple the 73 billion-ton melt rate of a decade ago, the scientists concluded. From 1992 through 1997, Antarctica lost 49 billion tons of ice annually...
The result also reinforces that nations have a short window — perhaps no more than a decade — to cut greenhouse-gas emissions if they hope to avert some of the worst consequences of climate change. /<snip-rearrange>
So less than a decade to avoid the worst consequences. Sounds to me like that means the really bad but not quite “worst” is already committed to then…
Hey! Are those scientists reading my posts?
:D
The Source
”Terrinam” wrote: Plastic in the ocean is additive; it doesn't increase heat retaining or reflection much, and barely kills off certain necessary living organisms, and thus has a much lessened long-term effect on the ocean. For the most part, the reason why it's such of a big deal is it's unsightly. Most life in the ocean will survive plastic just fine, and what won't isn't going to survive humanity anyway due to other reasons… {and other less sensible “facts”} As for plastics. The following link will give you some idea of the scale of the problem.
We Made Plastic. We Depend On It. Now We’re Drowning In It.
”NG” wrote: “Let’s say you recycle 100 percent in all of North America and Europe,” says Ramani Narayan, a chemical engineering professor at Michigan State University who also works in his native India. “You still would not make a dent on the plastics released into the oceans. If you want to do something about this, you have to go there, to these countries, and deal with the mismanaged waste.” Or this one to give you a good overview of what we don’t know and it’s always a bad idea to base policy on ignornace.
We Know Plastic Is Harming Marine Life. What About Us?
AGW stresses on marine organisms will be amplified by the presence of micro-plastics. Though it is certain that all the added chemicals we’re peeing down the drain will multiply the AGW stresses, micro-plastics will push many species beyond the brink all by themselves.
The article you linked said scientists have detected no effect from plastics on population levels.
Quote: So far science lacks evidence that microplastics—pieces smaller than one-fifth of an inch—are affecting fish at the population level.
Irontruth wrote: The article you linked said scientists have detected no effect from plastics on population levels.
Quote: So far science lacks evidence that microplastics—pieces smaller than one-fifth of an inch—are affecting fish at the population level.
You act like that is the only article on the Web about plastics in the ocean. You imply, not seriously I think, that all that #### in the world ocean is good for marine life.
Given that global fisheries are mostly over fished, some massively, I expect them to be unable to disentangle the effect of microplastics in a way that is irrefutable. Particularly when you add in the effects of all the other pollutants (silt/clay, industrial waste, agricultural waste, increased average temps, etc.). Oh, it's also worth mentioning that with studies of global scale there is no "control" group, so good luck "proving" anything.
CB's latest dig reminds me of all the people who think they know something significant yet clearly don't.
Case in point:
This week a friend of mine from grade school was back in town and we wandered around some of our old hangouts. Walking in the park nearest our old neighborhood we noticed several concrete pads along various paths, near intersections. He asked me what those are supposed to be for because he didn’t remember seeing them before. I didn’t know either but then late yesterday it came to me. These were put all over town, mostly in parks but also other public spaces, and they were the platforms for all the amazing solar-powered compacting garbage cans. That was a huge deal when the local government installed those in like our 3rd or 4th grade year. Seems we didn't recognize them without their solar-powered ornaments plopped atop them.
Now they all sit denuded because, it turns out, amazing solar-powered compacting garbage cans were really just another government “green” initiative boondoggle. A small boondoggle as government boondoggles go but still.
For a far larger example along these same lines:
Most wind power installations. The Paris Agreement is a global codification for this type of asininity.
Quark Blast wrote: ... A small boondoggle as government boondoggles go but still.
For a far larger example along these same lines:
Most wind power installations. The Paris Agreement is a global codification for this type of asininity.
So... wind power is a government boondoggle?
...and yet private investors are pouring billions in to the sector.
Quark Blast wrote: Irontruth wrote: The article you linked said scientists have detected no effect from plastics on population levels.
Quote: So far science lacks evidence that microplastics—pieces smaller than one-fifth of an inch—are affecting fish at the population level.
You act like that is the only article on the Web about plastics in the ocean. You imply, not seriously I think, that all that #### in the world ocean is good for marine life.
Given that global fisheries are mostly over fished, some massively, I expect them to be unable to disentangle the effect of microplastics in a way that is irrefutable. Particularly when you add in the effects of all the other pollutants (silt/clay, industrial waste, agricultural waste, increased average temps, etc.). Oh, it's also worth mentioning that with studies of global scale there is no "control" group, so good luck "proving" anything. I'm not acting like anything about plastics. I'm pointing out that you've made a false claim about them. You said:
Quark Blast wrote: micro-plastics will push many species beyond the brink all by themselves. That isn't true. The article YOU linked said there is no evidence for this.
CBDunkerson wrote: Quark Blast wrote: ... A small boondoggle as government boondoggles go but still.
For a far larger example along these same lines:
Most wind power installations. The Paris Agreement is a global codification for this type of asininity.
So... wind power is a government boondoggle?
...and yet private investors are pouring billions in to the sector. Well #### yeah! Cash in on the government subsidy while you can!
-===-
Ironthruth wrote: I'm not acting like anything about plastics. I'm pointing out that you've made a false claim about them. You said:
Quark Blast wrote: micro-plastics will push many species beyond the brink all by themselves. That isn't true. The article YOU linked said there is no evidence for this.
The article said one scientist said that.
Plus there was a metric ton of other references relating to plastics in the ocean. Please continue to ignore those
Plastics in the water may not be the cliff over which species fall to their death but it is the hurricane gust of wind pushing them off of the precipice. Outside of estuaries. Inside estuaries, near metro areas, the chemical soup is the slayer of all things happy and living but plastics aren't really helping there either.
The Larsen C Ice Shelf Collapse Is Just the Beginning—Antarctica Is Melting
”NG” wrote: UC Irvine/ NASA JPL Scientist Eric Rignot The retreat and hemorrhage of these glaciers “will accelerate over time,” agrees Rignot. “Maybe you don’t care much about that for the next 30 to 40 years, but from 2050 to 2100 things could get really bad, and at that point listening to scientists is irrelevant.” Yet after things get really bad, they could still get worse. .
Warming of the tundra is “just the beginning” too.
Nature on Permafrost
Nothing like a twofer to get you going.
Carbon and Methane
Gotta love those positive feedback loops reinforcing each other.
"Renewable energy is catching up to natural gas much faster than anyone thought"
Except, of course, rather a lot of us thought the 'conventional wisdom' (i.e. legacy energy industry predictions) on this was wrong and fully expected natural gas to stall out.
Plans for natural gas (and other fossil fuel... and nuclear) power plants are being scrapped left and right as more and more of the world does the math and realizes they no longer make economic sense. The vast majority of such plants built over the next ten years will wind up as stranded assets... being shut down early to reduce the amount of money they will lose as renewable power makes them non-profitable.
Quark Blast wrote: CBDunkerson wrote: Quark Blast wrote: ... A small boondoggle as government boondoggles go but still.
For a far larger example along these same lines:
Most wind power installations. The Paris Agreement is a global codification for this type of asininity.
So... wind power is a government boondoggle?
...and yet private investors are pouring billions in to the sector. Well #### yeah! Cash in on the government subsidy while you can!
-===-
Ironthruth wrote: I'm not acting like anything about plastics. I'm pointing out that you've made a false claim about them. You said:
Quark Blast wrote: micro-plastics will push many species beyond the brink all by themselves. That isn't true. The article YOU linked said there is no evidence for this.
The article said one scientist said that.
Plus there was a metric ton of other references relating to plastics in the ocean. Please continue to ignore those
Plastics in the water may not be the cliff over which species fall to their death but it is the hurricane gust of wind pushing them off of the precipice. Outside of estuaries. Inside estuaries, near metro areas, the chemical soup is the slayer of all things happy and living but plastics aren't really helping there either.
Keeping building your strawman. It's what you're good at.
QB: I'm going to illustrate what you did.
Hey guys, here's some information about smoking. It seems pretty clear to me that smoking could cause the extinction of the human species.
I link some information on the harmful effects of smoking, and then I take it to a conclusion that is not supported by that evidence.
Yes, plastics are harmful to aquatic life (and land-based life as well, when ingested). But the evidence YOU linked does not raise extinction level concerns. Just because something isn't threatening extinction of a species does not mean that it isn't harmful to individuals, and neither does harm to individuals indicate a threat of extinction.
If you have scientific evidence to support your claim that plastics will cause species extinction, I'm willing to look at it, but what you have provided so far does not support that claim.
You have linked scientific information that provides evidence on the harm plastics cause to individual organisms, and I fully accept it. I do not contest the idea that plastics cause harm to individuals. I would also agree with the sentiment that level of harm presented so far does require changes in our behaviors (from purchasing, to manufacturing, to regulation).
This was one of my textbooks. Read the whole thing. Some parts multiple times.
A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming
This was for a Sr/Grad level course that I took as a sophomore fall term. The professor gave me an “A” in the class. Not an “A+”, not an “A-“, but an “A”. I also got invited to participate the following term in a Grad seminar by the same professor. When I declined, because I couldn’t afford Grad credit, I was offered four credits of independent study. Alas, not my major so I really couldn’t use those credits and a required course for my major also conflicted so I could turn down the offer with poise.
In short, someone with real “street cred” and a 4.8 on Rate My Professor is far more qualified to critique my opinion.
Srsly, I get criticized for “failure” to back my opinions with sufficient links/references. And those same critics here? What do they cite? Well the worst one cites nothing but his own opinion expressed in an erudite snarkiness that goes a long ways toward explaining his capacity to spend an inordinate amount of time in the forums.
You know, I get that humanity is building solar and wind capacity at a prodigious and ever increasing rate. That’s nice. It’s about two-decades too late to miss the +2.5° C mark in the year 2100. The issue, as I have so ably documented, is not merely one of CO2 balance in the atmosphere. Pulling off the Paris Agreement dream (and then some! How we need more than that set of modest goals!) is not simply “CO2 math”.
Global humanity has been on a path toward a very warm year 2100 (and beyond) for about 70 years now. If we’re lucky we’ll veer off of it by 2030, but given human history on matters bigger than, “What’s for lunch?”, I expect we’ll be well past 2050 before we show significant reduction in our atmospheric CO2 contribution. And that rosy assessment assumes no run-away feedback releasing metric gigatons of C-as-CO2 and CH4 now sequestered in the tundra.
Call me names, give me backhanded compliments, don’t read but skim and flaunt a “deep” understanding of my many references,… whatever you have to. But the OP asked a very good question to start off this thread. I had a good time interacting with a few of the posters in this thread. I got some really good feedback that improved my grades, no doubt. And thank you!
My detractors? Except for a few minutes here today, I haven’t thought about those small ideas and trivial replies at all since I last posted here. Nor will I consider them starting mere moments from now.
How can a person commit the time to participate here and decidedly not be constructive?
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1 person marked this as a favorite.
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Clearly your class wasn't about computational irreducibility.
Irontruth wrote: Clearly your class wasn't about computational irreducibility. Oooh! Citing your own opinion again I see. Brilliant! You must already have your PhD. Your CV must be pages long, typed and single spaced.
Back to the OP:
Haven't found anything more out of last summer's scientific season Down Under but what has come out is all looking like my +2.5°C 2100 will be a conservative estimate; i.e. the concrete floor of my educated opinion is setting up firmly.
Also, my Tesla prediction has nearly come true. I only hope they don't go out of business by 2019. That would be sad.
:(
Quark Blast wrote: Irontruth wrote: Clearly your class wasn't about computational irreducibility. Oooh! Citing your own opinion again I see. Brilliant! You must already have your PhD. Your CV must be pages long, typed and single spaced.
Well, my point is that YOU don't understand the concept, so I need only cite YOUR definition of the concept to show that you're wrong.
Quark Blast wrote: 3) Computational irreducibility (some things... well, some things you just can't calculate however well you can measure them) You think computational irreducibility means that you "can't calculate" it. Which is patently false. You've had 6 months to correct this, but haven't done so. You walk past it and pretend that you have proven your point, but you don't actually do anything, or show any sort of improved understanding of the concept.
BTW, every time you point out that you're getting A's from professors, I have to laugh. When I was your age, I felt that getting an A in a college course was a big achievement. I'm going back to school right now. Fall semester I took 6 classes, 50% more classes than necessary to qualify for full-time. I only opened the reading material for one class, because we specifically had to reference literally all the assigned reading in our papers. I got all A's.
I went into a final that semester, I could have skipped it and gotten a B, cause I only needed a 27% to secure my A. I was quoting Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in my essay questions (I actually answered the questions, but I was having fun with it).
Your appeals to authority don't impress me.
Irontruth wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Irontruth wrote: Clearly your class wasn't about computational irreducibility. Oooh! Citing your own opinion again I see. Brilliant! You must already have your PhD. Your CV must be pages long, typed and single spaced.
Well, my point is that YOU don't understand the concept, so I need only cite YOUR definition of the concept to show that you're wrong.
Quark Blast wrote: 3) Computational irreducibility (some things... well, some things you just can't calculate however well you can measure them) You think computational irreducibility means that you "can't calculate" it. Which is patently false. You've had 6 months to correct this, but haven't done so. You walk past it and pretend that you have proven your point, but you don't actually do anything, or show any sort of improved understanding of the concept. As Wolfram says, Quote: "The principle of computational irreducibility says that the only way to determine the answer to a computationally irreducible question is to perform, or simulate, the computation. The problem with simulating the global climate is, given its chaotic nature and its thermodynamic disequilibrium, the only simulation you can actually perform is to watch the climate unfold over decades-to-centuries.
Computer models won't (yet! and likely never will) get you there. They can help set parameters, bracket some specified and limited outcomes, defuzz some of the dynamics, but they won't tell you which levers to throw to make the year 2100 global average climate like the year 1900.
We already know we need to stop dumping CO2, CH4, and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. It's far easier, scientifically, to focus on reduction in energy use + improvements in energy consumption, and scaling up of viable (<cough>not wind power</cough>) non-polluting sources of energy.
You can be all pedantic about how, "Yes, you can calculate atmospheric processes!", but that purposefully(?) overlooks my belabored point that it's a waste of time to do so.
Why?
Because we already know what we need to do (see above in this post and most of my other contributions to this thread).
Irontruth wrote: BTW, every time you point out that you're getting A's from professors, I have to laugh. When I was your age, I felt that getting an A in a college course was a big achievement. I'm going back to school right now. Fall semester I took 6 classes, 50% more classes than necessary to qualify for full-time. I only opened the reading material for one class, because we specifically had to reference literally all the assigned reading in our papers. I got all A's.
I went into a final that semester, I could have skipped it and gotten a B, cause I only needed a 27% to secure my A. I was quoting Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in my essay questions (I actually answered the questions, but I was having fun with it).
Your appeals to authority don't impress me.
Well, your comparison of your lower-division community college class experience to my Sr/Grad level state university experience taught by a major published researcher in climate science really, really, doesn't impress me.
Now, having said that, check out this:
Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change
”NYT” wrote: The Paris climate agreement — the nonbinding, unenforceable and already unheeded treaty signed on Earth Day in 2016 — hoped to restrict warming to two degrees. The odds of succeeding, according to a recent study based on current emissions trends, are 1-in-20.
If by some miracle we are able to limit warming to two degrees, we will only have to negotiate the extinction of the world’s tropical reefs, sea-level rise of several meters and the abandonment of the Persian Gulf. The climate scientist James Hansen has called two-degree warming “a prescription for long-term disaster.” Long-term disaster is now the best-case scenario.
Three-degree warming is a prescription for short-term disaster: forests in the Arctic and the loss of most coastal cities. Robert Watson, a former director of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has argued that three-degree warming is the realistic minimum.
Four degrees: Europe in permanent drought; vast areas of China, India and Bangladesh claimed by desert; Polynesia swallowed by the sea; the Colorado River thinned to a trickle; the American Southwest largely uninhabitable.
The prospect of a five-degree warming has prompted some of the world’s leading climate scientists to warn of the end of human civilization.
And you guys call me cynical. I’m looking more like a <sad> realist every day.
”NYT” wrote: If the world had adopted the proposal widely endorsed at the end of the ’80s — a freezing of carbon emissions, with a reduction of 20 percent by 2005 — warming could have been held to less than 1.5 degrees. Generally agrees with my assessment that had we started in earnest in the late 90’s a +2.5°C year 2100 would’ve been feasible.
Here’s the last of the preamble (the rest of the article is well written and hard to take even from a young veteran cynic like me):
”NYT” wrote: They risked their careers in a painful, escalating campaign to solve the problem, first in scientific reports, later through conventional avenues of political persuasion and finally with a strategy of public shaming. Their efforts were shrewd, passionate, robust. And they failed. What follows is their story, and ours. And the summary:
”NYT” wrote: Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif., has a habit of asking new graduate students to name the largest fundamental breakthrough in climate physics since 1979. It’s a trick question. There has been no breakthrough. As with any mature scientific discipline, there is only refinement. The computer models grow more precise; the regional analyses sharpen; estimates solidify into observational data. Where there have been inaccuracies, they have tended to be in the direction of understatement.
Caldeira and a colleague recently published a paper in Nature finding that the world is warming more quickly than most climate models predict. The toughest emissions reductions now being proposed, even by the most committed nations, will probably fail to achieve “any given global temperature stabilization target.”
More carbon has been released into the atmosphere since the final day of the Noordwijk conference, Nov. 7, 1989, than in the entire history of civilization preceding it. In 1990, humankind burned more than 20 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. By 2017, the figure had risen to 32.5 billion metric tons, a record.
Despite every action taken since the Charney report — the billions of dollars invested in research, the nonbinding treaties, the investments in renewable energy — the only number that counts, the total quantity of global greenhouse gas emitted per year, has continued its inexorable rise.
Then there’s this – a re-framing of the Tragedy of the Commons I’ve spoken about so many times in this thread.
”NYT” wrote: We worry about the future. But how much, exactly?
The answer, as any economist could tell you, is very little.
Economics, the science of assigning value to human behavior, prices the future at a discount; the farther out you project, the cheaper the consequences. This makes the climate problem the perfect economic disaster.
And a bit later:
”NYT” wrote: As Jim Hansen told me, “From a technology and economics standpoint, it is still readily possible to stay under two degrees Celsius.”
We can trust the technology and the economics. It’s harder to trust human nature.
Keeping the planet to two degrees of warming, let alone 1.5 degrees, would require transformative action. It will take more than good works and voluntary commitments; it will take a revolution. But in order to become a revolutionary, you need first to suffer.
Take that CB!
“Revolution”, in the sense that the article hopes for, is about 20 years away. Maybe 30. My only real hope is that there is some sort of C-capture+sequestration that costs about an order of magnitude or two less than the $535 trillion Dr. Jim Hansen figures.
Quark Blast wrote: The problem with simulating the global climate is, given its chaotic nature and its thermodynamic disequilibrium, the only simulation you can actually perform is to watch the climate unfold over decades-to-centuries.
Ah yes, the uppity college kid got an A in his class! We should all bow down to him, none of us could possibly be right on anything if we disagree with him.
Dude, you just quoted Wolfram, and then you directly contradict the quote in your analysis of what it means. You're applying a meaning to it that doesn't exist, and goes directly to the opposite of what he's trying to say about modeling.
By the way, I've switched schools. I'm at a big, state research school now too. Trying to get my foot in the door on some paid research/TA gig, I even helped a professor grade mid-terms and finals last semester. I also had a professor die, and once the class was over I helped organize some of notes because he was testing out some new material for a publisher. Lastly, I will trust any person who makes it through community college more than someone like you. People who make it through CC are clawing their way through life, and your disrespect for them is showing.
If you stopped with the smarther-than-thou attitude, I wouldn't bother pointing out where you're being stupid. But since you insist on acting like you're smarter than everyone here, I don't have to talk about where you might have a good idea. I can just point out where you're being stupid. If you don't like it, an easy fix would be to stop acting like you're smarter than me (or everyone in the thread). Whether you are or not doesn't matter because you'll always make a mistake (like you did with claiming that the article supported your claim of species-wide effects of plastics).
If you act like you're the smartest person in the thread, I'm going to point out the stupid things you say.
QB, please clarify. I'm not sure what I'm 'taking'.
More evidence that your claims that it is already too late to avoid over 2C of warming are false?
That would be the inescapable conclusion from claims that a revolution in 20 to 30 years could still prevent 2C, or even 1.5C.
Well done. You continue to provide solid arguments against your position.
No CB, 20 to 30 years out is another 20 to 30 years too late.
You see? If I was wrong about the year 1997 (or so) being our last real chance to get our global #### together, then adding another two to three decades to that makes me even more right.
Also, see my next post. It's the real reason I logged in this day.
Ironthruth wrote: <snip>... If you act like you're the smartest person in the thread, I'm going to point out the stupid things you say.</snip> Oh Gods of Golarion! I wish I had the time to waste like you apparently do!
And the fact that you think I'm putting down CC education shows just how poorly you've read my prior contributions. Additionally, at least the college experience I cite is directly relevant to the topic at hand and was overseen by an active contributing researcher in the AGW scientific debate. Your schooling means what exactly?
As for Wolfram and his approach:
If one had all the right parameters in a supercomputer capable enough, one could in principle model global climate 100 years out with a high degree of confidence.
Sadly, we don't have all the parameters. Nor do we likely have enough dedicated high-speed computing power working on this issue in the present. Therefore, watching the climate unfold will turn out to be our only accurate "model" for global climate change.
Capitalism's Inability to Decarbonize
Don’t watch the whole thing (unless you want) but skip to this short section - 22:35 - 26:55
That summarizes what has to be done and why it won’t be.
Next:
Videos like this, while technically true in what they present, are really a joke –
The Best Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
For a fully accurate video title it should read, “The Best Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint a Totally Insufficient Amount to Affect AGW”.
Here’s what one of the major optimists says about our current state of affairs.
A roadmap for rapid decarbonisation -- Johan Rockström 3-2017
The Global Carbon Law Rockström wrote: For us to succeed with a decarbonized desired future for humanity we need to halve emissions every decade. Can you really see that happening?
He gets a little more specific on his website about what global humanity has to do by 2020.
”Stockholm Resilience Centre” wrote: Energy
Renewables make up at least 30% of the world’s electricity supply — up from 23.7% in 2015 (ref. 8). No coal-fired power plants are approved beyond 2020, and all existing ones are being retired.
Infrastructure
Cities and states have initiated action plans to fully decarbonize buildings and infrastructures by 2050, with funding of $300 billion annually. Cities are upgrading at least 3% of their building stock to zero- or near-zero emissions structures each year.
Transport
Electric vehicles make up at least 15% of new car sales globally and commitments for a doubling of mass-transit utilization in cities, a 20% increase in fuel efficiencies for heavy-duty vehicles and a 20% decrease in greenhouse-gas emissions from aviation per kilometre travelled.
Land
Land-use policies are enacted that reduce forest destruction and shift to reforestation and afforestation efforts. Current net emissions from deforestation and land-use changes from about 12% of the global total. If these can be cut to zero next decade, and afforestation and reforestation can instead be used to create a carbon sink by 2030, it will help to push total net global emissions to zero.
Industry
Heavy industry is developing and publishing plans for increasing efficiencies and cutting emissions, with a goal of halving emissions well before 2050.
Finance
The financial sector has rethought how it deploys capital and is mobilizing at least $1 trillion a year for climate action. Most will come from the private sector. Governments, private banks and lenders such as the World Bank need to issue many more ‘green bonds’ to finance climate-mitigation efforts.
The only thing I find refreshing about Rockström’s presentation is his clarity and specificity about what needs to be done and by when.
China is being led by a dictator and India by a rockstar. If both of them can get on board with something like this (and so follow their respective populations), and they roll the EU into full compliance, then maybe we’ll see something better than a +2.5°C year 2100.
If you want to see in an accurately scaled but simple graphic for how big the problem is check this out.
Tell China they can modernize but they need to limit themselves to about what we had in 1950. In fact tell that to the whole world. Let’s dial back our standard to a lower middle class 1950 standard. It would still be a good deal for most of humanity. An incredible deal for a few hundred million – just have a gander at what life is like for all these people.
In here is a scaled 2D way of looking at the same issue.
The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration
Don’t watch the whole thing (unless you want) but check out these two short segments.
29:30 – 30:00
32:30 – 33:00
Without Carbon-capture + Sequestration on the same order as the rate we currently produce there will be no way to avoid a +2.5°C year 2100 (or worse).
Has it happened already? No.
Is it as certain as if it has already happened? Yes.
Unless global humanity stops acting like it has for all of recorded history and begins cooperation on a global scale to the degree seen in a typical small farming village.
Yep, companies will never choose to make a loss when they have the choice. Green capitalism is a f#~@ing joke!
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Can anyone point me to the direction of the report that they were basing this off of? The Newsroom: 2013 Environmental Protection Agency report(EPA) I do know that it was (I hope) an overdramatization, but I do know that there are more than a few facts in that too. I just want to read the report myself.
Since there was a mass deletion and some silence, I propose we reset some of the tone of discussion.
Present information, and discuss your ideas. Don't frame anyone else as wrong, just present evidence that supports the ideas you find to be most probable.
If you want to discuss someone else's stance, ask them simple and direct questions. If someone asks you questions, give them simple and direct answers.
So another IPCC report is due out this week. I have not read it but the prelims are not good news. More later when/if I have time.
Recently the BBC reported on China and the continued (yes, continued) building of enough new coal fired power plants to equal the current USA capacity of coal-fired power.
The BBC is a few months late on this but, given that China has no problem with emitting ozone-depleteing chlorofluorocarbons, we can easily see China also not caring that they are belching out Gtons of CO2 from newly constructed coal-fired power plants.
China coal power building boom sparks climate warning
BBC wrote: Building work has restarted at hundreds of Chinese coal-fired power stations, according to an analysis of satellite imagery.
The research, carried out by green campaigners CoalSwarm, suggests that 259 gigawatts of new capacity are under development in China.
The authors say this is the same capacity to produce electricity as the entire US coal fleet.
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China's central government has tried to rein in this boom by issuing suspension orders for more than 100 power plants but this analysis suggests that these efforts have been significantly less effective than previous news reports had indicated.
People are claiming that these coal-fired power plant completions are just make-work projects. Nice thought but this is somewhat old reporting and I think the better question is:
How many of these plants are actually on-line now?
The way to know whether the plants are being used or not is to look at coal consumption. We won't know 2018's numbers for a while longer, but 2017 saw less of an increase than expected at less than 1%, but that increase was compared to 2016 numbers. Compared to 2013 or 2015, China consumed less coal in 2017 though.
2018's numbers will help tell if these are just 'make work' projects, or if they are actually being used.
The central government is trying to solve issues with immediate, local pollution, which would indicate a push away from coal generally. It is possible that we've already seen peak coal consumption in China, but I'd be wary of anyone saying they know the future for certain on this issue.
One of the major uses of coal is in the production of steel, which is a necessary component for construction. The central legislature might impose a property tax some time soon (though it's been hesitating...), which would put a major dampening on new housing construction, which would lower steel production, and hence coal consumption.
Economics Nobel Highlights Climate Action Necessity
SA wrote: The most recent work I’ve done is studying actual trends in abatement and in policies, suggests we’re doing much less than what needs to be to reach any of the targets, whether it’s a 1.5 degree or 2 degree or even a 3 degree target.
I think the policies are lagging very very far, miles, miles, miles behind the science and what needs to be done…but it’s not too late.
But the steps we have to take are more difficult now than if we’d started earlier.
Some serious understatement there with the last sentence if you ask me but nice to see that they acknowledge that we aren't currently on track to even hit a 3.0°C target.
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Seven Things You Should Know About the IPCC 1.5°C Special Report and its Policy Implications
UCS wrote: Finally, we have to find ways to increase energy access for the millions of people in the world who still don’t have access to modern energy services. An ambitious suite of solutions must be quickly scaled up globally, else we risk locking in 3.4°C or worse. Like the SA article, this piece by the UCS is a pleasing confirmation of the conclusion I had come to quite a while back.
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The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), passed with broad bipartisan support in 2005/2007, promotes ethanol/biodiesel fuel use. Corn grown in the USA is allocated at about 40% to ethanol, about 40% to livestock, <20% food for humans.
How many tens of million acres of land was converted from a near-native or CREP condition to make ethanol? Most of that converted land area was net gain as far as CO2 budget against AGW effects.
Despite the fact that it is known to be worse than simply burning fossil fuels directly, viz-a-viz the CO2 load put into the atmosphere/unit of work, RDF is not only still a thing but there is serious effort to make it even more of a thing; again with broad bipartisan support.
WTH people! Stop it already with RFS (and wind power too if you ask me).
The real highlight of the week on this general topic came out of Inchon where the IPCC was meeting/negotiating what all the climate science means.
IPCC and Global Warming of 1.5 °C
First thing to note is that this document is a compromise discussion of the input from thousands of scientists over the last couple of decades (mostly). By its nature it is both conservative and hopeful in stating the severity of the problem and the potential for successful resolution. Granted, if the whole thing was hyper-negative that could add to a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom. Conversely, if it were super cheery then it would dampen the mood for actually doing the business of energy production/consumption differently.
Second thing to note is that the Paris Agreement is a sad sad effort for the present. Had it been put forward and adopted in say 1997, with concomitant shifts to earlier implementation of commitments, then it would have been amazing and prescient.
Here's a "compromise" jab at the Paris Agreement from the IPCC:
IPCC wrote: Estimates of the global emissions outcome of current nationally stated mitigation ambitions as submitted under the Paris Agreement would lead to global greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 of 52–58 GtCO2eq yr-1. Pathways reflecting these ambitions would not limit global warming to 1.5°C, even if supplemented by very challenging increases in the scale and ambition of emissions reductions after 2030. Avoiding overshoot and reliance on future large-scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) can only be achieved if global CO2 emissions start to decline well before 2030. Translation: "The Paris Agreement has us on track for a +3.5°C year 2100."
IPCC wrote: Anthropogenic emissions (including greenhouse gases, aerosols and their precursors) up to the present are unlikely to cause further warming of more than 0.5°C over the next two to three decades (high confidence) or on a century time scale (medium confidence). This estimate overlooks the contribution to global cooling (yes cooling) that particulate pollution provides. Eliminate coal, eliminate diesel, eliminate etc., and we'll be adding another +0.5°C to that number. That gives us the current value of (+1.2°C + 0.5°C + 0.5°C) = +2.2°C as a minimum. You can add another +0.5°C when jet contrails are greatly reduced/eliminated, and we're looking at a +2.7°C floor (and this is hopeful relative to what the Paris Agreement will give us).
Floor? Yes floor. Because none of this considers the effects of Tipping Elements or Tipping Points that may yet occur despite our "best" efforts (or may have occurred but we can't yet measure the passing of the threshold). These could add many 10ths to a few whole °C to the running total.
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IPCC wrote: In model pathways with no or limited overshoot of 1.5°C, global net anthropogenic CO2 emissions decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero around 2050. For limiting global warming to below 2°C CO2 emissions are projected to decline by about 20% by 2030 in most pathways and reach net zero around 2075. The 2010 amount was 30.6 Gt CO2. So a 45% decline gives us about 16.8 Gt CO2 needed by 2030; an annual value not seen since the early 1970's. This year's value is going to be between 42 and 45 Gt CO2; which means a reduction of at least 60% by 2030 to hit that same mark. That is a decline so steep it borders on absurd.
Moving on from the rate at which we are polluting and let's look at the remaining "budget" for how much more we can pollute with a limited fear of catastrophic consequences.
IPCC wrote: Uncertainties in the climate response to CO2 and non-CO2 emissions contribute ±400 GtCO2 and the level of historic warming contributes ±250 GtCO2. Potential additional carbon release from future permafrost thawing and methane release from wetlands would reduce budgets by up to 100 GtCO2 over the course of this century and more thereafter. In addition, the level of non-CO2 mitigation in the future could alter the remaining carbon budget by 250 GtCO2 in either direction. So with an assumed budget of around 500 Gt CO2 left to "spend", we get uncertainty in the +- 900 GT CO2, giving a total range of -400 GT CO2 (Woah! We're too late!) to +1400 Gt CO2 (Meh, no worries).
<sarcasm> Yeah, go ahead and write a policy to cover that hole in the data. </sarcasm>
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IPCC wrote: Pathways limiting global warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot would require rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure (including transport and buildings), and industrial systems. These systems transitions are unprecedented in terms of scale, but not necessarily in terms of speed, and imply deep emissions reductions in all sectors, a wide portfolio of mitigation options and a significant upscaling of investments in those options. "Unprecedented in terms of scale"? Yes, you need something like the Allied mobilization against the Axis during the 2nd World War to even approach the magnitude of this +1.5°C pathway endeavor.
Admissions like this really put a damper on the genuine hopefulness of this endeavor. While I can easily see global humanity banding together to defeat the AGW enemy, I cannot see this happening for at least another dozen years; more likely two dozen.
This effort is going to be (short term) costly. And, if seriously undertaken, it will cost the wealthy a great deal more than the have-nots.
Note: We in the West are the wealthy, along with a smaller (but ever growing) proportion of China, India and Russia.
To add to the cost there is this niggling requirement:
IPCC wrote: All pathways that limit global warming to 1.5°C with limited or no overshoot project the use of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) on the order of 100–1000 GtCO2 over the 21st century. CDR would be used to compensate for residual emissions and, in most cases, achieve net negative emissions to return global warming to 1.5°C following a peak. CDR deployment of several hundreds of GtCO2 is subject to multiple feasibility and sustainability constraints. Significant near-term emissions reductions and measures to lower energy and land demand can limit CDR deployment to a few hundred GtCO2 without reliance on bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Those significant “constraints" mean we (the wealthy) need to change our lifestyle rather drastically. See my last item below for more details.
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IPCC wrote: Global model pathways limiting global warming to 1.5°C are projected to involve the annual average investment needs in the energy system of around 2.4 trillion USD2010 between 2016 and 2035 representing about 2.5% of the world GDP. Yep, that's expensive. Not impossible but right in there with the pace of loss seen with the housing bubble crash of 2007-2013. Only this "crash" will last 20+ years instead of <6 years.
<sarcasm> Yeah, the +1.5°C pathway endeavor will be an easy sell. </sarcasm>
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As individuals here's what people need to do, not some people but essentially all of us, in order to limit AGW to a +1.5°C year 2100:
1) Go vegan/vegetarian
2) Don't fly or otherwise use air transport
3) Don't use fossil fuel burning personal vehicle transportation (i.e. use public/bulk transportation)
4) Recycle, turn off the tap when brushing your teeth, buy "local", etc.
Category 1 is more important that Categories 2-to-4 combined. Category 2 is more important that Categories 3-to-4 combined. Category 3 is more important than all the little things one might include under Category 4.
Note:
As a species we aren't even getting the relatively small items of category 4 mostly right.
Quark Blast wrote:
How many tens of million acres of land was converted from a near-native or CREP condition to make ethanol? Most of that converted land area was net gain as far as CO2 budget against AGW effects.
I don't know. How many 10s of millions of acres of land were removed from near-native or CREP condition for ethanol?
I know a lot was converted from other crops. I don't have any idea how much was converted from some kind of natural state.
thejeff wrote: Quark Blast wrote: How many tens of million acres of land was converted from a near-native or CREP condition to make ethanol? Most of that converted land area was net gain as far as CO2 budget against AGW effects. I don't know. How many 10s of millions of acres of land were removed from near-native or CREP condition for ethanol?
I know a lot was converted from other crops. I don't have any idea how much was converted from some kind of natural state. I would've cited a link but couldn't find it. I know that the figure was something like 7-9 million acres for South Dakota alone due to RSF-induced conversion.
Also, maybe I was wrong about how "little" my Category 4 Items are.
Check this:
Climate change: Is your Netflix habit bad for the environment?
BBC wrote: The lead scientist, Rabih Bashroush, calculated that five billion downloads and streams clocked up by the song Despacito, released in 2017, consumed as much electricity as Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Somalia, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic put together in a single year. This is why the West (and China, and India, and...) isn't going to arrest AGW below even a +2.5°C target.
No, not that^ particular issue but the attitude that allows that sort of absurdity to occur in the first place.
‘Hyperalarming’ study shows massive insect loss
I f!+*ing hate living through the middle of the next mass extinction. I am glad that I don't have kids.
Quark Blast wrote: This is why the West (and China, and India, and...) isn't going to arrest AGW below even a +2.5°C target. Reality: India is one of the few countries which IS on track to keep warming below +2°C.
It took less than a decade for India to go from trending towards greater than 4°C to being on track for less than 2°C. The US, China, and much of the rest of the world had started moving in that direction and then stalled when the political winds changed... but the economic realities are becoming ever more difficult to ignore.
We're seeing desperate efforts to prop up fossil fuels in many parts of the world (e.g. US, Canada, Australia, Europe, etc) currently but, even with insane policies like subsidizing inactive coal plants, the market is still shifting to renewables. Just more slowly than it had been before fossil fuel shills took over.
The fact that we are not currently on track to keep global warming below 2°C continues to have nothing to do with what we can do in the future.
Yes, 1.5°C continues to be implausible and 2.0°C will slip away if we don't shift course in the next few years... but it continues to be likely that we WILL shift in the next few years. Money talks and investment capital has already shifted from fossil fuels to renewable power. Lobbyists and political flunkies will inevitably follow.
Sharoth wrote: ‘Hyperalarming’ study shows massive insect loss
I f@#@ing hate living through the middle of the next mass extinction. I am glad that I don't have kids.
I actually posted/linked to this topic up thread here somewhere(I think). The Germans first discovered this and, once they published their findings, this phenomenon has been found around the world. I surmise that we have petrochemicals to thank.
Also, you're not "living through the middle of the next mass extinction". This is barely the beginning. We have several hundred years of this to go, even assuming we get AGW under control (ha!).
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