Yeah...
Again, not arguing with what the articles say. I am disputing your conclusions about human behavior (for which you've provided zero evidence).
You should continue presenting zero evidence, it's totally convincing.
QB, lets do this.
If this were one giant paper, what is the last sentence? What is the conclusion you are trying to convince us to agree with?
Clear and concise. No snark, no bragging. Just the core idea.
Here's an illustration of the problem writ small. Small but unambiguous:
Doing family stuff this time of year. Over at my auntie's place and she subscribes to National Geographic. Casually looking through one of the issues and noticed a blurb on some aspect of the AGW thing (doesn't really matter what the particulars were).
So there's a full page ad on remote getaway vacation destination for the facing page. You know, beautiful natural vistas with the ultra-modern lodge being the only human construction in sight. The kind you fly away to on a commercial jet liner halfway around the world and then switch over to a local aircraft (maybe it's a pontoon craft for landing on water because the place is so remote you can't drive there) for the last leg.
So there you have it. A very serious article on how brushing your teeth with the water on only when you critically need it - because you know, to do that you're saving the planet! - opposed by a visually compelling though truly frivolous (and CO2 intensive!) vacation getaway ad in a magazine published by an organization dedicated to the AGW fight. No small irony there.
Multiply that by 7 billion and you can see why a +1.5°C year 2100 simply isn't going to happen. Neither will it be a +2.0°C year 2100. At present I'll still go with +2.5°C as a minimum floor achievement (as always, barring nuclear fusion being successful and scaled by say 2050).
Okay, I asked for the conclusion, not an anecdote. I'm going to pick the last sentence:
Quark Blast wrote: At present I'll still go with +2.5°C as a minimum floor achievement (as always, barring nuclear fusion being successful and scaled by say 2050). Is that what you are trying to convince me of? If this isn't the conclusion you are going for, please present a different one. I'm just trying to make sure I understand what you're going for with zero ambiguity.
Major Funding Pledges Won't Close the Clean Energy Investment Gap
Or as the subtitle says, A crucial strategy for fighting climate change continues to come up short.
How short? Well it seems we are committed ("on paper") to about 10% of what we need to. We could quadruple our current (i.e. Katowice 2018 / COP24) pledge commitments and still be well below half of what we need to do. Without the transparency rules the signed document from COP24 isn't worth the paper its printed on. With the transparency rules, hmmm... I'll reserve judgement till about 2025 or so. By then we ought to know if the agreement is working (though we can certainly tell if its failing years before then).
SA wrote: Limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius will require transforming the energy sector and will come with a hefty price tag*. The International Renewable Energy Agency found that an additional $25 trillion of renewable energy investment would be necessary by 2050, or over $700 billion per year to limit a rise in temperature to 2 degrees C, more than double the current sector investment. This situation is similar to what we see with forests. The recent IPCC report signaled something like 37% of our CO2 reduction could be met simply by preventing forest degradation and reforesting damaged forests, particularly tropical forests but let's not exclude temperate forests or grasslands for that matter. It all adds up to that 37% target.
Of course right now we are set to hit about 2.5% of that 37% or about 7% of the target, which is a little worse than we are doing with funding renewables.
SA wrote: However, these {impact investing green energy} funds are still in the minority among institutional investors, and innovative policies will be necessary to attract investment for large-scale deployment. The federal government should make these investments more attractive to risk-averse organizations through risk mitigation and issuing sovereign green bonds, which finance renewable energy and environmentally sustainable projects. It sounds nice to say the Feds should back green investment by mitigating the risk involved but I think not. I've come down hard on (most) wind power projects as boondoggles (because the are) but far worse than wind energy have been biofuels. I can just see all sorts of money, now mitigated by the Feds, being wasted on biofuel** research and scaled production. No thanks!
If Federal money is going to back anything it should be taken from Big Oil and Coal and put towards projects too big for private investment. Functioning and scalable nuclear fusion. Or maybe a hyper-efficient catalytic process for removing CO2 from the atmosphere and turning it into rocks.
Now I admit that both fusion and carbon capture and sequestration can be a waste of money. But a can be is far better than a will be that we would see with mitigation of investment in biofuels and other known boondoggles.
SA wrote: The pledges made at COP24 are simply not enough. Agreed. But I must also point out that the pledges are just that. Action is what we need to see and so far the action to be seen isn't even aiming for a +2.5°C year 2100.
As mentioned in my previous post, even the organizations that are nominally "leading the charge" on this issue we see them expressly promoting highly non-sustainable practices because it gets them a few advertising dollars. Money talks, ######## walks, as they say and I call ######## on National Geographic.
* France recently found out the true cost of that hefty price tag
** Local efforts to turn fry grease into biodiesel are fine; I object to farmland being used for corn or cane derived fuel. Or worse, algae based fuel
I'm still not sure what your point is. Can you summarize it in a single sentence?
How China’s Big Overseas Initiative Threatens Global Climate Progress
YaleEnvironment_360 wrote: China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a colossal infrastructure plan that could transform the economies of nations around the world. But with its focus on coal-fired power plants, the effort could obliterate any chance of reducing emissions and tip the world into catastrophic climate change.
...
Just building the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road will absorb massive amounts of concrete, steel, and chemicals, creating new power stations, mines, roads, railways, airports, and container ports, many in countries with poor environmental oversight. But more worrying still is the vision of industrial development to follow, and the energy that is planned to fuel it. While China has imposed a cap on coal consumption at home, its coal and energy companies are on a building spree overseas.
Chinese companies are involved in at least 240 coal projects in 25 of the Belt and Road countries, including in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Serbia, Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. China is also financing about half of proposed new coal capacity in Egypt, Tanzania, and Zambia. While a few of these new plants will use the latest technology — in Bangladesh, for example, China is building the country’s first “clean coal” plant — many are less advanced and are not being planned with the carbon capture technology that would make them less threatening to efforts to control climate change.
...
As a spokesman for the China Huaneng Group, China’s national state-owned power company, told China Energy News in July 2015, the company was actively seeking development opportunities along the “Belt and Road.” It had a particular eye on the coal resources of South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Russian Far East. Other energy companies followed suit, supported by the third key element in the strategy – China’s state-owned banks.
190 countries agreed under the Paris climate accord to try to keep the global average temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius (C) and as close to 1.5 degrees C as possible. The energy finance think tank Carbon Tracker estimates that this will require a complete phaseout of coal worldwide by 2040. That, in turn, means that 100 GW a year, or one coal plant a day, will need to close from now to 2040, a goal that is directly undercut by China’s coal investments.
...
So far, the majority of BRI projects are energy-related: Since 2000, Chinese-led policy banks have invested $160 billion in overseas energy projects, almost as much as the World Bank and regional development banks. But unlike the World Bank, 80 percent of China’s overseas energy investments went to fossil fuels — $54.6 billion to oil, $43.5 billion to coal, and $18.8 billion to natural gas — compared with only 3 percent to solar and wind and 17 percent to often-controversial hydro projects.
When the Global Environment Institute, a Beijing-based NGO, reviewed China’s involvement in coal power projects in 65 countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, it discovered that between 2001 and 2016 China had invested in 240 coal power plants along the BRI, with a total generating capacity of 251 GW. Most were not the advanced installations that China was building at home. Kelly Sims Gallagher, professor of energy and environmental policy at Tufts University, points out that of 50 Chinese-financed, coal-fired power plants constructed overseas between 2001 and 2016, 58 percent used low-efficiency, sub-critical coal technology. Together, they would release nearly 600 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to 11 percent of total U.S. emissions in 2015.
This article says it all. I don't really need to comment further.
Rejoice and be glad!
:D
Okay, so I've given you an opportunity to provide me with a clear answer, and you are refusing to do so?
I'm actually trying to add clarity to the whole conversation. And you are responding with evasion and condescension.
U.S. Carbon Emissions Surged in 2018 Even as Coal Plants Closed
NYT wrote: “The big takeaway for me is that we haven’t yet successfully decoupled U.S. emissions growth from economic growth,” said Trevor Houser, a climate and energy analyst at the Rhodium Group.
There are signs that those standards have been effective. In the first nine months of 2018, Americans drove slightly more miles in passenger vehicles than they did over that span the previous year, yet gasoline use dropped by 0.1 percent, thanks in part to fuel-efficient vehicles and electric cars.
...
But, as America’s economy expanded last year, trucking and air travel also grew rapidly, leading to a 3 percent increase in diesel and jet fuel use and spurring an overall rise in transportation emissions for the year. Air travel and freight have also attracted less attention from policymakers to date and are considered much more difficult to electrify or decarbonize.
Yep.
NYT wrote: Under the Paris climate agreement, the United States vowed to cut emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. The Rhodium Group report warns that this target now looks nearly unattainable without a flurry of new policies or technological advances to drive down emissions throughout the economy. I think if the global economy crashes as bad or worse than it did circa 2008, then we could get back on track. But then if the global economy gets all wobbly again there will likely be a slowdown in coal-fired power plant decommissioning as well as a large decrease in solar and like investments.
So barring an eviscerating pandemic visited upon humanity, hitting the Paris/COP24 targets is still a vanishingly small possibility.
So, you're saying that unless something dramatically bad happens, nothing will change?
Antarctica’s Ice Loss Has Reached 250 Billion Tons Per Year
Smithsonian wrote: From 1979 through 1990, the frozen continent was shedding ice at a rate of 40 billion tons per year. A new analysis, however, found that from 2009 onward, that number rose to 252 billion tons per year—six times higher than the previous rate.
...
The latest analysis also attributes significant ice loss to East Antarctica, which was previously thought to be relatively safe from warming waters because its base is mostly above sea level, ... the team found that East Antarctica has contributed 4.4 millimeters to Earth’s global sea level in the last 40 years, while West Antarctica has contributed 6.9 millimeters.
...
“The traditional view from many decades ago is that nothing much is happening in East Antarctica,” Rignot says. “It’s a little bit like wishful thinking.”
Rather Rignot should've said, "It's a little bit like the Tragedy of the Commons".
Because it is... a lot.
I literally already agreed with you that it is a tragedy of the commons over two years ago.
Link
How about this... what properties of capitalism are poorly suited to solving issues of the variety of the "tragedy of the commons"?
Quark Blast wrote: Antarctica’s Ice Loss Has Reached 250 Billion Tons Per Year
Smithsonian wrote: From 1979 through 1990, the frozen continent was shedding ice at a rate of 40 billion tons per year. A new analysis, however, found that from 2009 onward, that number rose to 252 billion tons per year—six times higher than the previous rate.
...
The latest analysis also attributes significant ice loss to East Antarctica, which was previously thought to be relatively safe from warming waters because its base is mostly above sea level, ... the team found that East Antarctica has contributed 4.4 millimeters to Earth’s global sea level in the last 40 years, while West Antarctica has contributed 6.9 millimeters.
...
“The traditional view from many decades ago is that nothing much is happening in East Antarctica,” Rignot says. “It’s a little bit like wishful thinking.”
Rather Rignot should've said, "It's a little bit like the Tragedy of the Commons".
Because it is... a lot.
Except for the part where the Tragedy of the Commons is bullshit.
The Commons functioned quite well and very sustainably for centuries, if not longer. The so-called Tragedy didn't happen. The theory wound up being propaganda used to justify transferring communal property to private control.
And it certainly ain't like private ownership has a sterling record of sustainability.
Now it may be that such common goods aren't compatible with otherwise unregulated capitalism, but that's not really a problem with the commons.
</rant> Sorry. The Tragedy of the Commons is a pet annoyance of mine.
thejeff wrote: Except for the part where the Tragedy of the Commons is b~##%$#!.
The Commons functioned quite well and very sustainably for centuries, if not longer. The so-called Tragedy didn't happen. The theory wound up being propaganda used to justify transferring communal property to private control.
And it certainly ain't like private ownership has a sterling record of sustainability.
Now it may be that such common goods aren't compatible with otherwise unregulated capitalism, but that's not really a problem with the commons.
</rant> Sorry. The Tragedy of the Commons is a pet annoyance of mine.
We'll have to agree to agree here.
For anyone reading this on Mozilla's Firefox? Hey guess what? You're benefiting from a common resource stewarded by the community.
But, take the Tragedy of the Commons as a parable and it pretty much nails what global humanity is doing to the atmosphere.
If there are going to be about 9 billion of us by century's end (and barring a global "black death" type pandemic, global nuclear war, etc. there will be), then we will sure as #### screw up the atmosphere for centuries to follow (again, barring some sort of miracle tech in my lifetime to scrub the CO2 from the atmosphere on a decadal scale).
I see very very little hope of getting to a point where the year 2100 will have global mean temperature less than +2.5°C over pre-industrial.
And I won't be surprised, though I will be very despondent, if enough Tipping Elements are switched such that we hit a Tipping Point and push the AGW effect well past +3.5°C.
thejeff wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Antarctica’s Ice Loss Has Reached 250 Billion Tons Per Year
Smithsonian wrote: From 1979 through 1990, the frozen continent was shedding ice at a rate of 40 billion tons per year. A new analysis, however, found that from 2009 onward, that number rose to 252 billion tons per year—six times higher than the previous rate.
...
The latest analysis also attributes significant ice loss to East Antarctica, which was previously thought to be relatively safe from warming waters because its base is mostly above sea level, ... the team found that East Antarctica has contributed 4.4 millimeters to Earth’s global sea level in the last 40 years, while West Antarctica has contributed 6.9 millimeters.
...
“The traditional view from many decades ago is that nothing much is happening in East Antarctica,” Rignot says. “It’s a little bit like wishful thinking.”
Rather Rignot should've said, "It's a little bit like the Tragedy of the Commons".
Because it is... a lot.
Except for the part where the Tragedy of the Commons is b*$#+@&&.
The Commons functioned quite well and very sustainably for centuries, if not longer. The so-called Tragedy didn't happen. The theory wound up being propaganda used to justify transferring communal property to private control.
And it certainly ain't like private ownership has a sterling record of sustainability.
Now it may be that such common goods aren't compatible with otherwise unregulated capitalism, but that's not really a problem with the commons.
</rant> Sorry. The Tragedy of the Commons is a pet annoyance of mine. The commons isn't the cause of the tragedy, it is the location of it.
We can see where this has played out dozens of times in the industrial and post-industrial era. The problem only occurs when other interested parties have no means of applying effective pressure on a user of a common resource in order to force them to do so responsibly. Hence my comment alluding to capitalism's failure in this regard.
Irontruth wrote: thejeff wrote: Except for the part where the Tragedy of the Commons is b*$#+@&&.
The Commons functioned quite well and very sustainably for centuries, if not longer. The so-called Tragedy didn't happen. The theory wound up being propaganda used to justify transferring communal property to private control.
And it certainly ain't like private ownership has a sterling record of sustainability.
Now it may be that such common goods aren't compatible with otherwise unregulated capitalism, but that's not really a problem with the commons.
</rant> Sorry. The Tragedy of the Commons is a pet annoyance of mine.
The commons isn't the cause of the tragedy, it is the location of it.
We can see where this has played out dozens of times in the industrial and post-industrial era. The problem only occurs when other interested parties have no means of applying effective pressure on a user of a common resource in order to force them to do so responsibly. Hence my comment alluding to capitalism's failure in this regard. Yes. Once you decide to privatize everything that can be privatized and monetize it all, the remaining things that can't be privatized suffer.
But "The Tragedy of the Commons" blames the problem (which didn't exist when it was written) on the existence of the commons and pushes privatization as the only answer, ignoring the possibility of applying such effective pressure, despite it having been done in that very situation for centuries. And of course successful attempts to do so in many cases since.
Well, the commons can't take any actions, so I'm not sure how we can blame the problem on a field of grass.
I'm kind of assuming that we can refer to the term colloquially and don't have to go over a critique of the original work. I feel like we have better things to do than discuss bad capitalist philosophy from the early 19th century.
Quark Blast once wrote: I see very very little hope of getting to a point where the year 2100 will have global mean temperature less than +2.5°C over pre-industrial.
And I won't be surprised, though I will be very despondent, if enough Tipping Elements are switched such that we hit a Tipping Point and push the AGW effect well past +3.5°C.
Whoa! Hey! I'm a prophet! Check out this from a leading scientist who isn't me.
Greenland is approaching the threshold of an irreversible melt...
BI wrote: Michael Bevis, lead author of the paper and a professor at Ohio State University, told National Geographic. "We are watching the ice sheet hit a tipping point." It might take centuries to fully melt but "tipping points" are just that, once tipped they are going to spill.
Maybe my +2.5°C is too hopeful?
.
In other news:
Xi Jinping: president warns other nations not to 'dictate' to China
Xi Jinping wrote: No one is in a position to dictate to the Chinese people what should or should not be done... Guardian wrote: Observers hoped Xi would lay out new directions or reforms needed to help the Chinese economy, weighed down by debt and lagging consumption, and an overly dominant state sector.
Instead, his remarks focused on the supremacy of the ruling Chinese Communist party. Hailing the party’s leadership and strategy up to now as “absolutely correct”, he listed the government’s accomplishments.
Guardian wrote: Xi’s signature foreign policy has been the Belt and Road project, a massive investment drive to connect Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa by land and sea. At home, the government has pushed an industrial plan to upgrade Chinese manufacturing called Made in China 2025, which forms a key part of US complaints about Chinese intellectual property theft.
In his remarks, Xi reiterated earlier promises that China would “never seek global hegemony”.
“China is approaching the center of the world stage and has become a recognized builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, and a defender of the international order,” he said.
And also the leading global polluter - both directly and indirectly by helping a great many other nations (typically developing nations dependent on Chinese bank loans) pollute as well.
In bad news: Giant voids found under Thwaites Glacier.
Not news, but there is a potential solution that is relatively low tech that could save us. By changing how we care for grassland and use cattle grazing. We could actually reclaim massive amounts of land for feeding populations, stabilize water sources, and sequester carbon out of the atmosphere.
I was about to post on this a day or two ago but ran out of time to waste.
Huge cavity in Antarctic glacier signals rapid decay
phys.org wrote: Numerical models of ice sheets use a fixed shape to represent a cavity under the ice, rather than allowing the cavity to change and grow. The new
discovery implies that this limitation most likely causes those models to underestimate how fast Thwaites is losing ice.
About the size of Florida, Thwaites Glacier is currently responsible for approximately 4 percent of global sea level rise. It holds enough ice to raise the world ocean
a little over 2 feet (65 centimeters) and backstops neighboring glaciers that would raise sea levels an additional 8 feet (2.4 meters) if all the ice were lost.
...
For Thwaites, "We are discovering different mechanisms of retreat," Millilo said. Different processes at various parts of the 100-mile-long (160-kilometer-long) front
of the glacier are putting the rates of grounding-line retreat and of ice loss out of sync.
The huge cavity is under the main trunk of the glacier on its western side - the side farther from the West Antarctic Peninsula. In this region, as the tide rises and
falls, the grounding line retreats and advances across a zone of about 2 to 3 miles (3 to 5 kilometers). The glacier has been coming unstuck from a ridge in the
bedrock at a steady rate of about 0.4 to 0.5 miles (0.6 to 0.8 kilometers) a year since 1992. Despite this stable rate of grounding-line retreat, the melt rate on this
side of the glacier is extremely high.
"On the eastern side of the glacier, the grounding-line retreat proceeds through small channels, maybe a kilometer wide, like fingers reaching beneath the glacier to
melt it from below," Milillo said. In that region, the rate of grounding-line retreat doubled from about 0.4 miles (0.6 kilometers) a year from 1992 to 2011 to 0.8
miles (1.2 kilometers) a year from 2011 to 2017. Even with this accelerating retreat, however, melt rates on this side of the glacier are lower than on the western
side.
These results highlight that ice-ocean interactions are more complex than previously understood.
Not even two years ago this was published, Study shows Thwaites Glacier's ice loss may not progress as quickly as thought, and it was quite wrong.
Seriously, every time we get new good data on Antarctica (not theories based on equations governing computer models) it shows the situation was worse than we were thinking.
The 2017 article said this; "The melt rate of West Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier is an important concern, because this glacier alone is currently responsible for about 1 percent of global sea level rise."
The present one said this, "About the size of Florida, Thwaites Glacier is currently responsible for approximately 4 percent of global sea level rise."
Our understanding goes from "not as quickly" to "rapid decay". Which is it? In less than two years we get a 400% increase in the Thwaites' estimated contribution to sea level rise.
WTH? 400% error? Yeah, that'll screw up your climate model.
Tesla turns another profit, ramps up production – as competitors flood market with electric vehicles. Potential for ‘pile-up of epic proportions’
CNBC wrote: Automakers from Acura to Zotye are plugging into electric vehicles, with industry analysts expecting to see nearly a dozen new all-electric vehicles in U.S. showrooms by the end of 2019, with dozens more coming to market in 2020. That doesn't include all the plug-ins and conventional hybrids also being rushed to market.
...
There's just one problem: while sales of battery-based vehicles are on the rise, they still constitute a miniscule fraction of the American, European and Japanese markets. And even though sales are growing in China, they still constitute less than 4 percent of that market's total. So even as manufacturers push forward, many industry officials fear they could be at risk of wasting billions.
"The equations around electric aren't making money," Jack Hollis, the general manager of the Toyota brand, told trade publication Automotive News on Sunday after meeting with franchisees to discuss future product plans at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in San Francisco.
...
Whether the growth rate will pick up is a matter of intense debate. If for no other reason than the rapid shift to electrified powertrain technology, the AlixPartner study predicts pure electric models will account for 20 percent of U.S. sales by 2030, while reaching 30 percent in Europe and 35 percent in China, now the world's biggest motor vehicle market overall.
Looking slightly further out, a separate report by the Boston Consulting Group sees that vehicles using all the various forms of electrified powertrain technologies — including conventional hybrids — will reach the "tipping point," early in the 2020s, said BCG analyst Thomas Dauner.
Not everyone is so upbeat, and industry analysts point to a number of reasons why demand for plug-based models has lagged optimistic forecasts over the years — the Obama administration once predicting there would be 1.5 million of them on the road by mid-decade.
...
Musk has been struggling to lower the price on its signature Model 3 sports sedan, saying it's impossible to profitably sell a base model for $35,000 as he originally planned. Though he's lowered the price in recent months, the base model still costs well above $40,000.
What did I say the base Model 3 would cost when it finally hit the market? Roughly $47,000. That's quite a bit more than the $35,000 promise, but hey, Musk is known for not keeping his promises.
There will indeed be billions wasted over the next decade as the free market attempts to segue profitably into the EV world. We will get there for sure, sometime in the 2030's. Or about 30 years too late to prevent a +2.5°C year 2100.
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Four decades of Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance from 1979–2017
PNAS wrote: We find that the Antarctic Ice Sheet has been out of balance with snowfall accumulation the entire period of study, including in East Antarctica. This is big. Like huge... monstrous? Maybe ginormous is the word I need.
PNAS wrote: In sum, the northern sector of West Antarctica is losing mass rapidly and could entrain the progressive collapse of a large share of West Antarctica and its 5.1-meter sea level equivalent. In Wilkes Land, East Antarctica, the ice sheet loss is two to three times slower, but this sector holds an equally large, multimeter sea level equivalent.
Over the last four decades, the cumulative contribution to sea level from East Antarctica is not far behind that of West Antarctica, that is, East Antarctica is a major participant in the mass loss from Antarctica despite the recent, rapid mass loss from West Antarctica (Table 1). Our observations challenge the traditional view that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is stable and immune to change. [b]An immediate consequence is that closer attention should be paid to East Antarctica.
An understated conclusion. In fact, as I've openly wondered many times before on this thread, perhaps the normal scientific penchant for conservative/understated conclusions has exacerbated the AGW response.
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Climate Change in 2019: What Have We Learned From 2018?
CCtruth wrote: Alaskan permafrost melt is now emitting more greenhouse gases than the entire state is storing in tundra and forests ecosystems, according to findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This wasn’t supposed to happen before the end of the century... Every time we get a better grasp on global climate system elements, in this case permafrost, it turns out our understanding was too cautious in regards to how bad the resulting AGW effects will be.
CCtruth wrote: Today, in our already changed and dangerous climate, Harvey-like storms will recur in Houston on average every 16 years. By 2100, they will happen every 5.5 years. Seems a bit alarmist but hey "MIT scientist says", so it must be true-ish.
CCtruth wrote: Today we are warming our world far faster than almost anything in prehistory. This discrepancy is a huge challenge for science as abrupt Earth systems changes such as ice sheet collapse are not significantly included in future climate projections. This is because we cannot yet model abrupt ice sheet collapse with any degree of certainty. This type of fact was behind my many early posts about how poor our global climate models are. I'm vindicated yet again, though I'd rather not be.
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Climate Predictions and Projections by Jim Hurrell - Oct. 2018
Don't watch the whole thing. Skip to about 45:00 and watch to the end or roughly 55:00.
Important note: the spread of outcomes even within the same model (47:15 to 47:45) prevent us from making close estimates of what global humanity needs to do. We don't know, outside a fairly broad range of certainty, what target we should aim for nor the various ways we should work to mitigate AGW.
Unpredictable natural variability is elucidated quite well at 50:30 to 51:00. Make a small perturbation in the model in 1920 and what the year 2100 will look like is anybody's guess. Because not only does the model give quite a spread but the whole system is chaotic (inherently unpredictable).
In theory, if we had a model for the attractor(s) of the global climate system, we would have to deal with only the minor error from our models (aka the "spread"), but we don't have any good idea what the attractor/s is/are let alone how to accurately account for them in our models.
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Climate Change and Regreening the Emerald Planet: Dwight H. Terry at Yale - Nov. 2018
38:30 to 38:40 "You have to keep it lower than 1.5 degrees if you want to have a biologically manageable planet, because it will all start coming apart in ways that's very hard to predict".
See? He gets it and isn't afraid to say so.
We understand how tipping elements can occur. We understand that if enough elements get strung together we create a tipping point (i.e. a run-away feedback loop that makes things exponentially worse).
We don't understand how many elements we have in the global climate system. We don't understand when the ones we do know about will tip. Nor do we understand how many elements are needed to create a tipping point.
We think a +1.5°C year 2100 will be largely ok for global humanity.
We merely hope a +2.0°C year 2100 will be manageable.
We are mostly certain a +2.5°C year 2100 will push us into one or more tipping points and, barring scalable near-miracle tech, concomitant global social chaos for centuries to come.
We'll be lucky if we only get a +2.5°C year 2100.
So I shouldn't prepare for a full android body upgrade in 2250 then is what you're saying...
Thomas Seitz wrote: So I shouldn't prepare for a full android body upgrade in 2250 then is what you're saying... Yes! That and so much more...
So you're suggesting no Mars colony either by 2050 then?
Thomas Seitz wrote: So you're suggesting no Mars colony either by 2050 then? 2050 is too soon anyway. If we got there that quickly we'd die from some complication related to living in a starkly hostile world. Like an oxygen leak or slow poisoning from an unusual Martian compound or a simple overdose of radiation what with no magnetosphere or ozone layer.
For now I suggest an underground (deep underground) compound as a sort of lifeboat with lots of frozen gametes and the biochem equipment needed to utilize them someday in a century or three. Also healthy people from the full spectrum of positive human potential to keep things clean and organized until they are needed.
But I HATE the underdark! It's dank, moldy and I get no love from moles!
Also I'd rather take over Mars. No one will miss it if it goes boom.
Whoa, holy crap this thread is still active?
Yuugasa wrote: Whoa, holy crap this thread is still active? "Active"? Yes.
Thriving? Hmmm...
I prognosticate that by December 31, 2020 we'll know without disputation where the planet is headed and this thread will doze until it gets necromancied right before the end of all things.
Yuugasa wrote: Whoa, holy crap this thread is still active? "Active"? Yes.
Thriving? Hmmm...
I prognosticate that by December 31, 2020 we'll know without disputation where the planet is headed and this thread will then doze until it gets necromancied right before the end of all things.
By that time, I'll be 44, Quark. So I figure 2021 I'll be screwed anyway...
I'm just surprised, is all.
The death of the internal combustion engine has begun.
In the three largest markets (China, EU, & US) sales of electric vehicles in 2018 took up enough market share to not only cover annual population growth, but also forced ICE sales to decline from their 2017 levels.
At the start of 2018 analysts were mostly predicting that ICE sales would peak around 2022. By the end of the year they were saying that 2018 itself would be the peak sales year... but this data suggests it had already happened in 2017.
At current projections of EV sales growth we are likely to see new ICE sales falling below the replacement rate, and thus the total number of ICE vehicles on the road decreasing, around 2022. In the more likely event that EV sales rates continue to accelerate we'll get there sooner.
In any case, we are only a few years from peak ICE... and when the number of cars burning oil products starts to decline so will the amount of oil being burned. And as with growth of renewable energy... it is happening much faster than predicted. Which means that future warming scenarios based on those slower predictions are going to be over-stated.
That sounds like good news!
It does sound like good news.
It also handily ignores the fact that:
- CO2 emissions and total CO2 is up for last year and will almost certainly be up this year over last.
- China is still building coal-fired power plants around the world by the hundreds.
- EV commuter vehicles do nothing for the bulk of the diesel fuel economy.
- Insects are being decimatedx9 on a global scale and the 'science is not in' as to why.
- ...
As I said in one of my posts on February 15th, "Every time we get a better grasp on global climate system elements, in this case permafrost, it turns out our understanding was too cautious in regards to how bad the resulting AGW effects will be."
We think a +1.5°C year 2100 will be largely ok for global humanity.
We merely hope a +2.0°C year 2100 will be manageable.
We are mostly certain a +2.5°C year 2100 will push us into one or more tipping points and, barring scalable near-miracle tech, concomitant global social chaos for centuries to come.
EVs and solar panels will not save the planet. They are a good start, if 20 years too late at scale, but it will take an investment 5x or more over what we've put into solar and EVs to get us where we needed to be in the late 1990's.
Quark Blast wrote: It does sound like good news.
It also handily ignores the fact that:
<snip list of unrelated things>
I could similarly list countless facts that your post did not include. Claiming that these things are therefore "ignored" is lying. Please don't do that.
Also;
Quote: - EV commuter vehicles do nothing for the bulk of the diesel fuel economy. While this almost seems relevant... it isn't because the stats I cited were not limited to "EV commuter vehicles". We're talking about total EVs vs total ICEs... which includes diesel.
So no, most commuter vehicles do not run on diesel. That in no way changes the fact that EVs are replacing ICEs, including diesel.
Quote: EVs and solar panels will not save the planet. So the planet is going to be destroyed now? Wow... and here I thought your 'Antarctic ice will be mostly gone in a couple decades' prediction was ridiculous.
Quote: They are a good start, if 20 years too late at scale, but it will take an investment 5x or more over what we've put into solar and EVs to get us where we needed to be in the late 1990's. Impossible to dispute... or agree with... as you don't state any definable metrics. "Where we needed to be"?
EVs and solar panels will prevent us from hitting the more hellacious global warming levels (i.e. 4C warming or more) that we were headed to without them. They may even prevent us from hitting 2C warming.
CBDunkerson wrote: Quark Blast wrote: It does sound like good news.
It also handily ignores the fact that:
<snip list of unrelated things>
I could similarly list countless facts that your post did not include. Claiming that these things are therefore "ignored" is lying. Please don't do that. Not quite. Paint me with partisan extreme colors if you must but the EV news is only unqualified good news if one ignores a host of other considerations that directly impact AGW.
I listed only a few of those "unrelated" things.
You see, if EVs happen to meet your wildest hopes over the next decade they still won't be even 20% of the solution towards keeping the year 2100 at or below +1.5°C.
And as I amply demonstrated with my February 15th posts (and many others up-thread as well), all of which went completely ignored by participants in this thread, even a +1.5°C may prove impossible to manage given human nature.
CBDunkerson wrote: At the start of 2018 analysts were mostly predicting that ICE sales would peak around 2022. By the end of the year they were saying that 2018 itself would be the peak sales year... but this data suggests it had already happened in 2017. This only matters if total average MPG was reduced as well. If ICE SUVs and Trucks still increased while Honda Civic-like sales decreased in favor of EVs, we haven't gained anything. The article you link doesn't parse this information and so it doesn't allow an unqualified "Good News!" declaration.
Sorry.
Facts are stubborn things.
Also, as EVs eventually take over the auto market globally there will be starts and fits. Especially early on. The data from 2017 or 2018 may prove to be a start with an upcoming fit of losing ground for a year or two, and then the cycle repeats.
CBDunkerson wrote: EVs and solar panels will prevent us from hitting the more hellacious global warming levels (i.e. 4C warming or more) that we were headed to without them. They may even prevent us from hitting 2C warming. Given that Tipping Elements and Tipping Points seem to be real things, it's impossible to say that the year 2100 won't prove "hellacious".
For example, even a +1.5°C average global temperature will mean a +2.5°C Arctic temperature rise.
Think about that! What will that do for the permafrost? You think that might set off a Tipping Element or two there?
Yeah, facts are stubborn things and it's best to look at all the facts you can before declaring victory.
Quark Blast wrote: Yeah, facts are stubborn things and it's best to look at all the facts you can before declaring victory. It's also best to do so before declaring defeat.
Quark Blast wrote: ...the EV news is only unqualified good news if one ignores a host of other considerations that directly impact AGW. This is clearly false. The equivalent of saying that, 'saving one person from drowning is only unqualified good news if one ignores that other people have and will drown'. Just, no.
In any case, your previous claim (which you attempt to repackage in slightly less absurd terms above) that failure to list every fact is the same as ignoring those facts remains plainly false.
Quote: You see, if EVs happen to meet your wildest hopes over the next decade they still won't be even 20% of the solution towards keeping the year 2100 at or below +1.5°C. ICEs account for about 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Along with electricity generation, they are the easiest to replace with zero emissions sources. Ergo, no... if we somehow manage to keep warming below +1.5°C (or any other level) it is very unlikely that EVs will represent less than 20% of the solution.
That said, we'd likely have to convert nearly all ICEs and electrical generation to non-emitting sources over the next decade or so to prevent +1.5°C... which, as I've said before, doesn't seem like a plausible scenario.
Quote: This only matters if total average MPG was reduced as well. If ICE SUVs and Trucks still increased while Honda Civic-like sales decreased in favor of EVs, we haven't gained anything. The article you link doesn't parse this information and so it doesn't allow an unqualified "Good News!" declaration. Now see, this is an actual relevant objection. Hypothetical and unsubstantiated, but at least on point... though I'd argue that even if your speculation about a sudden shift from Civics to SUVs over the last few years were correct (which seems unlikely), the trend of increasing EV sales causing decreasing ICE sales would still make it irrelevant. Even if the shift existed AND was so extreme as to have offset the emission savings from EVs thus far... we'd still see declining emissions as EV sales continue to grow.
Quote: Also, as EVs eventually take over the auto market globally there will be starts and fits. Especially early on. The data from 2017 or 2018 may prove to be a start with an upcoming fit of losing ground for a year or two, and then the cycle repeats. We're past the 'early on fits and starts' stage. EV sales have continued to grow so far this year and there is no reason to expect that trend to change any time soon. Each year EV ranges are increasing, EV prices are decreasing, and the number of different types of EVs available for sale is growing.
Ergo, what could cause a reversal in EV sales? Lower oil prices? They're already low and even if they do drop further it seems unlikely to matter... electric driving would still cost less per mile, maintenance costs of EVs would still be lower, and upfront vehicle costs would still be in the same ballpark as ICEs (or, within a few years, lower). A sudden breakthrough in ICE technology that lowers the cost? Unlikely after more than a century of research by some of the wealthiest companies in history... even if they hadn't all but eliminated their ICE research budgets, which they have. Volkswagon recently said that they will finish development of their current 'next generation' engine, but don't have a program to develop another after that because EVs will have taken over by then.
Quote: Given that Tipping Elements and Tipping Points seem to be real things, it's impossible to say that the year 2100 won't prove "hellacious". Now you're just playing semantic games. When I used the term "more hellacious global warming levels" I defined that subjective term as "4C warming or more". You using "hellacious" to mean something else avoids my point rather than disputing it.
thejeff wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Yeah, facts are stubborn things and it's best to look at all the facts you can before declaring victory. It's also best to do so before declaring defeat. I'm not declaring defeat. I'm declaring a floor of +2.5°C for the year 2100.
CB wrote: This is clearly false. The equivalent of saying that, 'saving one person from drowning is only unqualified good news if one ignores that other people have and will drown'. No, your analogy needs to be "saving a planet of people from drowning". And EV sales won't do that. See my next point.
CB wrote: ICEs account for about 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Along with electricity generation, they are the easiest to replace with zero emissions sources. Ergo, no... if we somehow manage to keep warming below +1.5°C (or any other level) it is very unlikely that EVs will represent less than 20% of the solution. You're forgetting(?) some important facts again. EV sales like in the article you linked won't do a thing for ICEs that run:
- Delivery trucks
- Trains
- Plains
- Shipping
- Farm equipment
- Construction equipment
- Military land, sea, and air craft
Taking those out of the equation and you definitely end up with less than 20%. Sorry, those stubborn facts again.
CB wrote: Ergo, what could cause a reversal in EV sales? Two things. One, I wasn't arguing for a reversal, just a leveling of sales. Two, to answer your question directly:
- Lack of charging stations.
- Bad engineering as they ramp up / proportionally massive recalls.
CB wrote: Now you're just playing semantic games. When I used the term "more hellacious global warming levels" I defined that subjective term as "4C warming or more". You using "hellacious" to mean something else avoids my point rather than disputing it. ??? I don't think so. Tipping Element / Points most certainly could make for a +4.0°C or greater year 2100. Depends on how many get triggered.
.
Before anyone posts to correct me I see the Elon has apparently made a real commitment to the $35,000 Model 3. Although to do that he's going to have to fire an unspecified number of people, shutter "dealerships" nationwide, and other unspecified cost saving measures. Had he not "cheated" by doing those things my prediction would have held. Model 3s would be going for about $47,000 on the low end instead.
My only consolation is Tesla shares are taking a serious hit for these moves on Elon's part. Brave man Elon is. Or he's high again.
:D
Quark Blast wrote: You're forgetting(?) some important facts again. EV sales like in the article you linked won't do a thing for ICEs that run: Delivery trucks: As usual, you just don't know what you are talking about. Electric delivery trucks work just fine.
Trains: You haven't heard of electric trains? Seriously?
Plains: I assume you mean airplanes. You've finally found something which can't be electrified (yet), but the vast majority of them also don't run on ICEs... and the contribution of all aircraft to GHG emissions is less than 2% of the total.
Shipping: I'll assume you mean by ships rather than the wider usage of the term for any sort of transport of goods... again, shipping adds up to less than 3% of total emissions.
Farm & Construction equipment: Bzzzt... electric vehicles work just fine here too.
Military vehicles: As above, tiny percentages of emissions and/or able to be electrified.
Quote: - Lack of charging stations.
- Bad engineering as they ramp up / proportionally massive recalls.
So... more fiction.
As EV usage ramps up available charging has easily been able to keep pace... because charging stations take very little time to set up anywhere you have an electrical grid. Which is virtually everywhere you have roads for cars to drive on.
As to the massive recalls. Let me know when that happens.
You were wrong about the Model 3 at $35,000. You are wrong about EVs not being profitable until the 2030s (they're profitable now). You clearly don't have even a rudimentary grasp of the issues (e.g. no electric trains, yeeesh). Maybe you should stop and spend some time educating yourself on the basics?
So...Anyone going to Mars in 2024? Cause I'd like a lift...
CBDunkerson wrote: Plains: I assume you mean airplanes. You've finally found something which can't be electrified (yet), but the vast majority of them also don't run on ICEs... and the contribution of all aircraft to GHG emissions is less than 2% of the total. Actually you are not 100% correct.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180814-norways-plan-for-a-fleet-of-electr ic-planes
Devon Northwood wrote: CBDunkerson wrote: Plains: I assume you mean airplanes. You've finally found something which can't be electrified (yet), but the vast majority of them also don't run on ICEs... and the contribution of all aircraft to GHG emissions is less than 2% of the total. Actually you are not 100% correct.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180814-norways-plan-for-a-fleet-of-electr ic-planes From the article: "But there is one major barrier – there are no airliner-size electric-powered aircraft being built yet."
Seems entirely consistent with what I said.
Current electric planes are experimental prototypes which can carry a couple of people over relatively short distances. That said, there is every reason to believe they will continue improving. Whether they will ever reach the point that they can replace all existing fossil fuel powered aircraft is an open question... but they certainly aren't at that point now.
CBDunkerson wrote: Quark Blast wrote: You're forgetting(?) some important facts again. EV sales like in the article you linked won't do a thing for ICEs that run: Delivery trucks: As usual, you just don't know what you are talking about. Electric delivery trucks work just fine. Except most trucks aren't electrical at present and won't be soon enough to meet or exceed the +2.0°C year 2100 goal.
Also see my point below on subtraction and how you get from 25% to 20% with these little niggling points you seem so dismissive of.
CBDunkerson wrote: Trains: You haven't heard of electric trains? Seriously? Sure but tell me how many electric trains UP/SP operate? How many does BN/SF operate? CSX? CN/CP? KCS? Etc.
Zero in every case.
CBDunkerson wrote: Plains: I assume you mean airplanes. You've finally found something which can't be electrified (yet), but the vast majority of them also don't run on ICEs... and the contribution of all aircraft to GHG emissions is less than 2% of the total. Yes but I'm only needing to whittle down your "ICE = 25% of CO2 emissions" to 20% and every 2% counts.
Remember the article you cited didn't even take on SUVs and Trucks but mere passenger vehicles. You are so far from supplanting even half of ICE CO2 emissions before 2030 that I don't even need to do the math. But I will just for you.
CBDunkerson wrote: Shipping: I'll assume you mean by ships rather than the wider usage of the term for any sort of transport of goods... again, shipping adds up to less than 3% of total emissions. And there goes another 3% off of that 25%.
Hey! I'm at 20% with only aircraft and ocean/river shipping. I won the argument with only two categories! All the others are mere gravy to my victory meal. Mmmmm... gravy...
CBDunkerson wrote: Farm & Construction equipment: Bzzzt... electric vehicles work just fine here too. Except there are effectively none at present. Nor are there likely to be for a decade+. Pour me some more gravy!
CBDunkerson wrote: Military vehicles: As above, tiny percentages of emissions and/or able to be electrified. Hey, a tablespoon more gravy is just that much more gravy. I'll take it.
CBDunkerson wrote: Quote: - Lack of charging stations.
- Bad engineering as they ramp up / proportionally massive recalls.
So... more fiction.
Fiction? No, just my usual faith in humanity.
CBDunkerson wrote: As EV usage ramps up available charging has easily been able to keep pace... because charging stations take very little time to set up anywhere you have an electrical grid. Which is virtually everywhere you have roads for cars to drive on. Every little delay is that much more CO2 in the atmosphere. More months and years of CO2 emissions = that many more 1/10ths of a degree C over 2.0 by the year 2100. It all adds up. Round these little things off at your own peril.
CBDunkerson wrote: You were wrong about the Model 3 at $35,000. You are wrong about EVs not being profitable until the 2030s (they're profitable now). You clearly don't have even a rudimentary grasp of the issues (e.g. no electric trains, yeeesh). Maybe you should stop and spend some time educating yourself on the basics? We haven't sold any $35k Model 3s yet and if it bankrupts Tesla it really won't matter that Elon kept his promise.
Tesla is yet to make back ROI for it's Model 3 EV investments. That might happen before 2030 but lets not count it until the money has actually come in. You can bet the banks aren't going to.
Quark Blast wrote: Except most trucks aren't electrical at present ...and welcome to the inevitable goalpost moving portion of our 'discussion'.
Nobody claimed that EVs have already replaced ICEs... only that growing EV sales are starting to cause ICE sales to decline. You objected that this wasn't relevant for delivery trucks. You were wrong.
Quote: Also see my point below on subtraction and how you get from 25% to 20% with these little niggling points you seem so dismissive of. The "roughly 25%" figure was my citation of ICE contributions to GHG emissions. The "20%" figure was your claim that eliminating ICEs would contribute less than 20% of any solution to stopping global warming. You can't just subtract and say there is a 5% difference... because we are talking about two different things.
Eliminating 25% of all GHG emissions gets us MORE than 25% of the way to stopping global warming. Natural sinks currently absorb roughly 50% of the GHG we emit each year. If we can decrease GHG emissions ~60% below their current levels over the next few decades then the GHG concentration in the atmosphere should stop growing and global warming will subsequently level off as well. So even 'just' 20% of those emissions gets us 33% of the way to the 60% we need... and your 'ICEs will be less than 20% of the solution' remains wrong.
Quote: Sure but tell me how many electric trains UP/SP operate? How many does BN/SF operate? CSX? CN/CP? KCS? Etc. Again, goalposts.
You cited trains (and trucks, farm equipment, ships, etc) as instances where "EV sales like in the article you linked won't do a thing for ICEs".
Sales of electric trains (and trucks, farm equipment, ships, etc) obviously WILL reduce the emissions of ICE vehicles that they replace.
Of "electric farm and construction equipment";
Quote: Except there are effectively none at present. Nor are there likely to be for a decade+. Again you have gone from claiming they will never have any impact to claiming that there are currently very few of them. Even the new claim is debatable given its entirely subjective nature (i.e. how many is "effectively none"?). There are thousands of electric farm and construction vehicles in use today. Sales of these vehicles are growing. This will cause reduced usage of fossil fuel based vehicles and corresponding GHG emissions reductions.
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