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nigelj at 18:38 PM on 8 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
Richard at 14
"If 10% of all agricultural land across the planet were to be farmed using proven, relatively simple, cheap and healthy Reg Agriculture principles, that would sequester approximately 46.g Gt of CO2/yr. That is more than the approx. 25.6 Gt that is currently emitted and so we could begin to bring down the Keeling curve.
These comments contain errors. They make uncited claims. Read my comment @1 based on a published, peer reviewed meta study. Not sure how you could have even missed it. Paraphrasing the study, soils can be made to sequester about 1.9 gigatonnes of carbon a year (which is approx 9 gigatonnes of CO2). And total emissions is approx 37 gigatonnes per year, easily googled. As per the study, this sequestration process requires virtually all the worlds croplands to be used.
I get so tired of exaggerations. That is not to diminish the obvious value of regenerative agriculture, and the criticisms of industrial agriculture look roughly correct. Regenerative agriculture is a good thing for several reasons. Over selling the concept just seems like it could backfire and will give ammunition to the critics.
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swampfoxh at 18:08 PM on 8 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
Nigelj already points out that population can't shrink fast enough to clear the 2 or 3 degree increase, yet some commenters maintain that Regen, CCT and other remedies are useful endeavors...even though they will be resisted by that very large (billions) population. So if we do these things and population still thwarts the 2 or 3 degree goal, what's to follow?
Moderator Response:[DB] Again, time to move on from this line of discussion.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive or off-topic posts. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion. If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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swampfoxh at 17:49 PM on 8 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
The rules of Regen Ag require a massive and coercive change in human behavior. Still, very few scientists are addressing Animal Agriculture's negative impact on any chance to implement Regen Ag. Meanwhile, CCS offers another mirage undertaken by the fossil fuel industry to avoid stranded assets and have sold a bill of goods to the public that CCS will solve the larger emissions problem. If we are going to discuss solutions that require an "ought" followed by a statutory requirement, why wouldn't we just go with outlawing conventional plant and animal agriculture and fossil fuels? We know nobody will change their habits unless forced to do so by government fiat, so why not go for the jugular right now?
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Richard13699 at 11:42 AM on 8 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
For all his technological brilliance and extraordinary engineering prowess, Elon is better to concentrate on further refining his Tesla empire and leaving the question of 'carbon capture' to the farmers who are operating their farms along Regen Agriculture principles.
The capacity of the soils to capture and hold carbon (and sufficient depth) is effectively infinite. As long as there is atmospheric CO2, N2, water, sun and chlorophyll, then plants and their mycorrhizal symbiotes will continue to build soil carbon.
The problems is that current agricultural practices that stem from the well intended but ultimately flawed thinking of the Green (agribizz) revolution, are actually inhibiting photosynthesis and slowly degrading soils worldwide.
Some of the problems.
1.Heavy machines compact the soil and prevent atmospheric N2 from getting to the roots.
2. Deep ploughing destroys the mycorrhizal fungal networks that are vital to the process.
3. Inorganic N2 compounds are added that actually inhibit the chemistry of carbon storage.
4. Inorganic N2 run of is bad and N2 creates N2), a potent GHG.
The less agrichemicals that are used, the healthier the plants, the animals (including humans) that eat the produce, the farmers who farm the land.The more regen agriculture, the more healthy soils that hold carbon and water.
If 10% of all agricultural land across the planet were to be farmed using proven, relatively simple, cheap and healthy Reg Agriculture principles, that would sequester approximately 46.g Gt of CO2/yr. That is more than the approx. 25.6 Gt that is currently emitted and so we could begin to bring down the Keeling curve. All that stands in the way of this are the vested interests of 1) agribizz which makes approx. $250 – 300B/year from feeding the current problem 2) technobizz that claims giant vacuums can process the planet’s atmosphere, as in some Sci Fi novel. -
swampfoxh at 07:17 AM on 8 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
Not suggesting we kill anybody. Merely showing that whatever we do can't really solve the problem unless the population falls to a half billion and industrial animal ag is outlawed along with go.ssil fuels being left in the ground. We can see that population size can't change fast enough, so while we are "mitigating" damage to a hospitable climate, we are "exterminating" ourselves...and we all recognize that the carbon footprint of 8 billion consuming "stuff" and emitting wastes will overwhelm and bury all of our remedies. Carbon Capture is all bunk science since we already don't know what to do with the CO2 we have, let alone what to do with the CO2 we still want to kick out into the atmosphere, just so we can continue burning fossil fuels.
Surely no one believes that sequestering CO2 in the ground is expecting it to stay there. Surely, plate tectonics is still operable on Earth. When you think about that, we should remind ourselves that nature already sequestered fossil fuel materials in the ground...then we dug it up.
And when we think about mitigation efforts, we should consider that most of the planet's humans are not going to cooperate. We might be able to engineer a reduction in some emissions, but we already know that large numbers of people aren't going to let us do it...like they are not letting us do it now.
Moderator Response:[DB] Please move on from this line of discussion.
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nigelj at 06:31 AM on 8 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
A global population of 500 million is not going to happen fast enough to solve the climate problem. Killing billions of people is too evil and stupid to contemplate, and even if the global fertility rate fell to zero tomorrow (which it obviously wont) population size still wouldnt change fast enough to keep warming under 2 - 3 degrees. Consider the demographics.
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Bob Loblaw at 04:33 AM on 8 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
Of course, any CCS technology runs into the question of how much it costs, in comparison to not emitting the CO2 to begin with.
An early effort at full scale is the SaskPower coal-fired plant in SE Saskatchewan (Canada). Adding the technology to an existing power plant, it reduces efficiency, only part of the CO2 is permanently stored - and it is being used to increase the extraction efficiency of nearby fossil fuel deposits - and the economics haven't been quite was aws originally claimed.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:39 AM on 8 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
swampfoxh,
A better solution is to have leadership (all of it, in business and politics) held to account for achieving and improving on all of the Sustainable Development Goals and everything like them that is being worked on related to fixing-undoing the harmful unsustainable things that have developed and developing sustainable improvements for the future of humanity (like nuclear non-proliferation, and COP-IPCC actions to end climate change impacts). Anyone in a leadership role impeding that effort should be removed from their position and everyone their harmful leadership actions "helped" should be penalized to remove the gains obtained from the harmful pursuits of benefit.
As for global population. If the highest impacting portion of the population was trimmed off the total sustainable global population could be 10 to 12 billion people based on current technology, with higher numbers possible with the development of better sustainable ways of living.
If you really are interested in understanding what is required for a better future for humanity, including population considerations, I recommend:
- Read Jeffrey D. Sach's "The Age of Sustainable Development" or take the MOOC of the same name. That book (and MOOC) present the evidence-based understanding of the Sustsainabel Development Goals.
- Read the following report recently published in The Lancet "Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study". That study concludes that the global population is likely to peak at less than 10 billion. And it concludes that if the Sustainable Development Goals are met the peak population will be lower.
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Nick Palmer at 01:26 AM on 8 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
Hey swampfoxh, most climate scientists (the guys who are smart enough to figure out the climate and its potential trajectory) reckon we can solve this problem without going to the extreme lengths you suggest needs implementing...
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swampfoxh at 22:56 PM on 7 March 2021Guest post: Why avoiding climate change ‘maladaptation’ is vital
There is no chance that mitigation efforts to reverse the climate problem can take into account any affected group, all groups are adversely affected because all groups live here on Earth. Earth is where the climate problem is, and all human Earthlings have contributed to this problem. We tag the problem as Anthropogenic, leaving out the rocks, trees and other plants and animals as culpable parties...we even leave out the bovines because their numbers and impact are because of humans. There will not be a solution to the climate problem, anyway, because humans are incapable of controlling their numbers. The complete elimination of fossil fuels and animal agriculture will not cure the climate problem because we humans will not meddle with procreation. In the end, their will still be a few hundred million left on the Planet at the very end of history...they will have to just "go on" "without".
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swampfoxh at 19:26 PM on 7 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
Looking back on global history, no organism before humans had utilized fire to control his living environment. The human requirement for heat became a human requirement for propulsion and power which became a human requirement for digging up fossil fuels and eating animals. So as long as there are humans, and lots of them, the climate problem can never be solved.
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swampfoxh at 19:12 PM on 7 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
Why don't we just face the reality that only three things need to be done to fix the climate problem: stop burning fossil fuels, outlaw industrial animal agriculture and reduce population to somewhere around 500 million. Certainly. As long as we have the carbon footprint of 8 billion humans and 1.445 billion bovines, nothing we do will change the trajectory.
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nigelj at 16:18 PM on 7 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
Enhanced rock weathering has potential at two billion tons of CO2 per year. The required source rock is abundant. Sounds relatively benign and environmentally friendly, compared to crazy ideas like BECCS.
energypost.eu/enhanced-weathering-crushed-rocks-spread-on-farmland-can-capture-billions-of-co2-year/
However direct air capture technology does still sound useful, and appears to already be proven. Although storing the CO2 undergound intuitively sounds challenging.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:42 PM on 7 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
I share Bob Loblaw's concern about partial Carbon Capture related to fossil fuel burning. It is likely to just be the newest unsustainable harmful way of doing things. Even a system that theoretically captures all created CO2 is likely to suffer from the "reality gremlin" (a term made-up just as I wrote this). There will likely be a nasty reality difference from the theoretical performance of such a system. It include things like fugitive emissions (unintended escape) that are almost impossible to eliminate from any built system.
I would add the concern that any Carbon Captured needs to be as certain as possible to be locked away (very likely locked away is not good enough). This concern would also apply to CCS that is being claimed as a credit against GHGs from fossil fuel activity. An aspect of this concern is that pumping captured CO2 into underground features that are "Hoped to be permanent storage" is potentially limited to things like salt caverns in geologically "quiet (very little quake activity) regions".
The understanding needs to be that fossil fuel use actually has to be rapidly reduced and, in addition, there needs to be systems that take CO2 out of the atmosphere even if there is no profit to be made from such systems. And those systems taking CO2 out of the atmosphere need to be sustainable - no harm done by their operation or they just become a new harmful unsustainable way of doing things. And sustainable Carbon Capture systems need to start operating as soon as possible, no waiting for the "lowest cost system" to be developed. And they should be paid for by the least deserving among the wealthy who obtained wealth or other benefits from fossil fuel use through the past 30 years (when the wealthy should have been leading the way to Carbon-Zero living).
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RedBaron at 14:35 PM on 7 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
Two things:
1) There is more carbon missing from agricultural soils worldwide than extra in the atmosphere. So any techy sort of carbon capture that sequesters it permanently out of the biosphere certainly could be highly highly dangerous in the long term. Being locked into the sort of industrial agriculture, (with heavy use of fertilizers made from fossil fuels and vast areas degraded by biocides), spreading around the world is certain doom in the long haul. We collapse the biosphere carbon cycle and nothing we do will matter at all.
We actually need the carbon, but back in the soil where it belongs.
The primary issue with doing this however, is determining rate. That part is highly controversial for a complex wide variety of reasons.
I will be putting together a team to go for that prize though. Because if we can get the rate high enough, on enough land, it can help meet the IPCC guidelines.
2) Elon Musk is also involved in cutting emissions with Tesla, and battery/solar systems. So the criticisms regarding cutting emissions that were mentioned in the video are NOT warranted at all.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:53 AM on 7 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
Robin:
My view is that any CCS technology that basically captures all the CO2 emitted from a fossil fuel plant would be acceptable, but CCS technology that only captures partial emissions is only helpful in the short term and bakes in CO2 emissions for the life of the technology.
Yes, emissions are reduced somewhat with partial CCS, but then you have the investment in that technology that is a paid-forward cost. The holders of that technology will not be happy if they are told they have stranded assets that must be elimated in the next step towards zero emissions.They will fight that tooth and nail, much as the fossil fuel industry has been fighting for decades.
So, in favour of CCS for complete capture. Reservations about partial CCS - especially if it represents long-term infrastructure investment.
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DK_ID at 05:52 AM on 7 March 2021Peter Brannen's Paleo Proxy Twitter Thread
I love paleo and am truly enjoying Peter Brannen's Atlantic article. Thanks for directing me to that. I'm not done (slow reader) but do have one comment. His reason for the Younger Dryas, the generally accepted reason, is not the only explanation. One problem with Lake Agassiz spilling into the North Atlantic and shutting down the AMOC, thereby causing the Younger Dryas, is that other interglacials should have followed a similar pattern, but the brief return to glacial conditions is absent from the earlier records.
Another possibility is that a large comet struck North America at the beginning of the Younger Dryas. If so, it not only initiated the return of ice but ended the Clovis culture. Maybe such a strike might have disturbed the lake, leading to its premature exit? I forget where I 1st read about the impact theory but is was after the 91 references in the Wikipedia article.
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robinp1k2 at 01:24 AM on 7 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
I regard Carbon Capture technology as necessary as the IPCC report suggests. But at this point I feel continued research in large-scale and cheap DAC (direct air capture) technology is a good plan - it will likely take decades for this technology to mature. It's an insurance policy in case we are not able to cut emissions rapidly enough to stay under 1.5 or 2.0 C. I do not want to see more CCS (carbon capture & sequestration) research because I view it a solution that enables us to keep burning fossil fuels. Let me know if you think otherwise... I'm not a scientist and I just want us to get to net zero!
Robin
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nigelj at 18:43 PM on 5 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
This study is relevant: "Global Sequestration Potential of Increased Organic Carbon in Cropland Soils"
www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-15794-8
The research study reviews the literature and says (parphrasing) soils can be made to sequester up to an additional 1.85 gigatonnes carbon per year assuming the proper forms of farming are used (no tilling, mulching, crop rotation, biochar, etc.) and scaled up globally to include all or most croplands. Imo this number seems quite significant given global carbon emissions each year from fossil fuels are approx. 10 gigatonnes. It might be possible to do better of course, but this is a study of what is currently known by way of field trials.
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Dawei at 15:17 PM on 5 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Great intro. My story: I started checking New Research back in 2019 and haven't missed a week ever since. By far the best part of this site.
I save every paper with an observed, negative impact on humanity into a database. To my knowledge no such database exists anywhere else. I've added over 70 papers to my database thanks to this list and it's great to be able to get the "latest and greatest" from here.
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michael sweet at 11:02 AM on 5 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Jamesh:
Your first question relates to waste heat. The thread for waste heat is here. If you look at this post you will find a response I posted in 2010 to someone else who didn't understand waste heat. Read the waste heat thread. Your questions have already been answered.
Your second question relates to the measurement of energy in the environment. Professional scientists know how to measure all the energy in the environment. In your example the energy can be measured by the temperature change of the water. The evaporation can be measured. The graph of increasing ocean heat content (posted for you by the moderator on another thread but now lost since you posted off topic) is measured this way. The local temperature change from artifical lakes is known and the temperature change from increasing evaporation due to irrigation is also measured and known. The heat absorbed by melting ice is known. There is no hidden energy.
We all start out not knowing how measurements are made. As we gain experience we learn how more and more things are done. I recommend that you assume scientists have measured anything you can think of. That will be correct most of the time.
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jamesh at 07:01 AM on 5 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
I found doug-bostrom's posting very helpful inasmuch as it focused on several issues that can be discussed in a frendly atmosphere. The first is the warming of our invironment in the US in the years since the end of WW2. at the end of the war we had a population of 14o million. Housing developments were built on what was farm land. Power plants were built, both nuclear fossil fuel. The interstate HWY system was built. plus a lot of secondary roads. Dams were built for the purpose of generating electricity. The Marble canyon dam created the enormus Lake Powel. I don't know the impact of Lake Powel, I leave that to the experts. The St. Lawrence Seaway project was built to genrtate electricity. New power lines were built to transmit all the new power. At least 30 pct of transmited power is lost to the environment. We built shopping centers, high rise buildings, waste water treatment plants which were designed to use the aerobic process, drinking water treatment plants. solid waste disposal methods which were very energy Americans had to pay for all of the above energy intensive projects, so to call them deniers is unfair. The next issue I want to deal with is the measurement of energy in the environment. We have heated up our invironment, and I assume it can be decteded by sattelites, but there is hidden energy which can be computed but not detected. To prove my point I chose to pick a municipal reservoir used for drinking water. Such reservoirs are closely monitored for PH, temp. etc. The water is soft and the goal is to keep it that way. Said reservoir recieves a certain amount of solar radiation every day, which can be estimated. Once the energy is adsorbed by the water it is essentialy in storage, we cannot measure it, and it doesn't matter where we try to measure it, we cannot see it. If we know the temp. of the water we can calculate how much energy is lost through evaporation. When the evaporation process takes place, we still cannot takr a direct measurement of the watervapor. The watervapor will eventually cool and release it's energy. So it looks to me like we have an energy transfer system to which our instruments are totally blind.
Moderator Response:[BL] Referring to the blog post author's name in your comment does not make your comment on-topic.As far as I can tell, none of the rest of your comment has anything to do with any article referred to in the blog post.
You have been warned on multiple occasions before. take your comments to appropriate threads. Read those threads before you start commenting.
Warning #2
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive or off-topic posts. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion. If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:48 PM on 3 March 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9
Jamesh,
As michael sweet has suggested, claiming to be an engineer and therefore more "Open-minded" is something you should delve into a little more to be sure it is true about You, and make it truer about you.
I am also an engineer, with an MBA, and decades of work experience. And I question your claims.
Moderator Response:[BL] Let's try not to get lost in the "what is someone's background?" question. Jamesh's statements about climate science issues can stand or fall on their merits. His claim to be an engineer is irrelevant, and let's just drop it.
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MA Rodger at 10:56 AM on 3 March 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9
gerontocrat @9,
Meanwhile there is still the JAXA VISHOP web page which has in recent days glitchless updates of Arctic SIE.
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gerontocrat at 07:12 AM on 3 March 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9
Just to let people know that the daily sea ice area and extent data from NSIDC has not been successfully updated since Feb 19. Methinks they have a problem somewhat bigger than the odd glitch that happens from time to time.
Moderator Response:[DB] NSIDC is working on it:
"For those following sea ice on our site: sea ice processing is currently having problems. Daily Sea Ice Index/Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis values after February 19 are erroneous. We are investigating the issue and will correct it as soon as possible."
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michael sweet at 07:07 AM on 3 March 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9
Jamesh:
The statement "CO2 in water does not behave like most other gases" does not relate to the fact that CO2 can force global warming. Most gasses like O2 and N2 dissolve only is very small concentrations in water. By contrast, CO2 reacts with water to form carbonic acid H2CO3. Carbonic acid and its derivitives (HCO3- and CO3-2) are very soluble in water. Thus much more CO2 to dissolve in water than N2 and O2. The formation of carbonic acid when CO2 dissolves in water causes ocean acidification and is a very serious problem all by itself.
Increasing the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere causes the atmosphere to warm up. This has been known by scientists since about 1850. Gasses that stay in the atmosphere for a very long time, like CO2, are said to force the increase in temperature since increasing CO2 forces the atmosphere to warm. Releasing water into the atmosphere, for example from the chimney of a coal burning power plant, does not result in significant increase in atmospheric temperature. The amount of water in the atmosphere is controlled by the temperature of the atmosphere. Any added water simply falls as rain in a few days and the temperature is not affected. By contrast, CO2 released today will linger in the atmosphere for centuries or much longer.
Dr. Mann's 1998 paper uses proxies from around the world to estimate past temperatures. Most are from remote areas. Your statement "measured on the ground temps in industrial areas" is simply false. The concept of climate forcing was introduced long before 1998. If you want to keep your discussion to "the facts" you need to learn the facts first. As I pointed out above, scientists have known since the 1850's that CO2 can force the temperature of the atmosphere to increase.
It seems to me that you are copying your arguments from some other web site. Can you tell us which web site you are getting your "facts" from? They seem to be the arguments that were shown to be incorrect 20 years ago. If you tell us where you are getting your misinformation from we probably can refer you to posts that debunk that site specifically.
Some of the posters you are arguing with have PhD's in hard sciences (I only have a Masters degree in Chemistry). They have decades of experience dealing with uninformed arguments against Global Warming. Suggesting that as an engineer who appears young you know the facts better than older scientists who have been around the block is not a strong place to argue from. I suggest that, instead of challenging other posters and suggesting you alone know the answer, you ask questions to try to find answers you do not know.
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jamesh at 03:08 AM on 3 March 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9
I have 2 final comments that I believe ot be on topic (please keep in mind that I am an engineer by training and experience and we tend to see the big picture; it's not easy to focus on individual issues) My first comment relates to Bobs posting #2; Item #4. The statement that "CO2 in water does not behave like most other gases" addresses a question that has bothered me for a long time; that is how can CO2 as an ordinary GHG force global warming. Thank you Bob for a clear explanation. I assume SKS on in agreement as are associated scientists. The second comment is just an observation. The comments above focused mainly on ocean temteratures whereas Dr Mann's paper dated 01 April 1998 delt with measured on the ground temps in industrial areas and he did introduce the concept of climate forcing and CO2's ability to force climate change is related to it's ability to perform as a super GHG
Moderator Response:[BL] Regarding "on topic".Dr. Mann is not mentioned anywhere in the list of articles in this post, or any of the previous comments. You are continuing to place comments in locations that are not appropriate. As michael sweet has replied, I will leave your comment intact, but if you continue to do this your comments will be deleted, in part or in whole. The relevant part of the Comments policy is:
All comments must be on topic. Comments are on topic if they draw attention to possible errors of fact or interpretation in the main article, of if they discuss the immediate implications of the facts discussed in the main article. However, general discussions of Global Warming not explicitly related to the details of the main article are always off topic. Moderation complaints are always off topic and will be deleted
Your posting pattern continues in the same style as before, where you throw out short, erroneous statements of previously-debunked myths. The relevant part of the comments policy is:
No sloganeering. Comments consisting of simple assertion of a myth already debunked by one of the main articles, and which contain no relevant counter argument or evidence from the peer reviewed literature constitutes trolling rather than genuine discussion. As such they will be deleted. If you think our debunking of one of those myths is in error, you are welcome to discuss that on the relevant thread, provided you give substantial reasons for believing the debunking is in error. It is asked that you do not clutter up threads by responding to comments that consist just of slogans.
Comments that match the sloganeering definition are also subject to deletion, in whole or in part.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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Bob Loblaw at 08:36 AM on 1 March 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9
Phillippe, MA, and OPOF.
I have no problem with your "not even wrong" descriptions.
The biggest problem with jamesh's posts here is that they are glib, incomplete, vague throw-aways. It is hard to discuss his posts, or guess where they would be on-topic, because they are so devoid of any real, meaningful content.
And when he is pointed to possible topics, or his errors are pointed out, he just stops interacting and goes to a different thread with a different topic.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:21 AM on 1 March 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9
Another approach to the claims made-up by jamesh would be to ask what change has occurred in the planetary mechanisms they refer to that can explain the many observed changes in the planet's climate system (and explain all the other climate system observations).
There already is a robust explanation for the observed changes in the climate system. And it continues to be fine-tuned rather than significantly altered by new investigation and observation. A viable alternative would have to be as good at explaining all the observations to date.
A lack of a verifiable explanation would potentially make jamesh a misleading marketer or conspiracy theorist (either making up the misleading stuff or allowing themselves to be fooled into parroting it), unless they are able to present a well reasoned explanation for why they make-up the claims they do.
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Klemet at 05:36 AM on 1 March 2021Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
@Rob, I agree with you concerning the more "radical" elements of the vegan community. Knowing some of them personnaly, I think that as many activits that go "too far", most of them do have good intentions; but nuance and good communication is always important with such issues.
Concerning dietary choice, I agree that being an heterotrophic life form (contrary to autotrophic ones), we are stuck with a choice of "who do we eat" instead of "what do we eat", as you nicely pointed out. However, I still have trouble thinking of "who we eat" as a stricly personal choice that involves no responsability. Indeed, why would killing and eating another human, out of any survival necessity, be a "personal" choice ? And if this is not, why would killing and eating a cat or a dog for mere habit or pleasure be a personal choice, as they are so close to us in term of sentience and emotional capabilities ? And if this is indeed not, why is killing and eating a pig or a cat - animals as smart and sensitive as cat and dogs - because we are used to it be a personal choice ? Hence, if there is no responsability to who we eat - and so, who we kill - and why, then I always end up thinking that this opens the door to a moral justification for many despicable actions. If I eat pigs for habit and pleasure, who am I to judge someone that kills a cat out of sport ? And would it be ethical - or even possible - to only translate those questions in monetary costs ? Wouldn't it allow the richier to act immoraly, as they can afford it ? (Maybe that's already the case, sadly.)
But that's just the stricly individual question of killing an animal; environmental and health impacts might also imply a responsability toward others. If it's pretty irresponsible to take the plane instead of a train, wouldn't it be irresponsible to eat beef (the most impact-heavy meat) instead of a plant-based meal ? And again, would taxation only result on rich people being able to be the most irresponsible ?
I think that I can still understand your view, though. Telling people what to do and how to think isn't very effective, and incentives like taxation might have a more subtle and persistent effect on these issues. But I don't think that this is enough to tackle the more pressing ethical questions related to who we eat - and that activism, even if "radical" (an adjective very dependant on the epoch), might have a role to play to solve this.
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MA Rodger at 04:55 AM on 1 March 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9
Philippe Chantreau @3,
I would tend to agree with the "not even wrong" catagorisation.
As well as being tiny, the heat flux from seabed into abyssal ocean is also difficult to measure because it is very variable and dependent on geology with perhaps a third of the net 30TW flux through the oceanic crust due to venting (those volcanoes the troll happily concentrates on).
Averaged out, such a net flux would provide perhaps +0.09ºC to the sea bed, an insignificant amount at the surface but less ignorable in the abyssal ocean.
While the effects of the resulting tiny abyssal warming will depend on the location and will always be tiny on an oceanic scale, they do play what is described as a a "non-negligible role" in eroding abyssal stratification and enhansing ocean circulation.
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Philippe Chantreau at 02:36 AM on 1 March 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9
Jamesh @ 1: I have to disagree with Bob and classify this mini Gish gallop of yours in the "not even wrong" category. You contradict yourself and the, well, facts.
It is a fact that the temperature profile of oceanic water shows decreasing temperature with depth. If the oceans were dissipating by convection heat communicated to them by their floor, they would show very different temperature profiles. But they don't, because the energy communicated to them that way is so small that it can't even be measured. That's only one part of everything that is wrong with your argument. It makes no sense whatsoever.
It also shows that you could not be bothered with even the most basic effort of verification to see if what you thought held water, although there is an illimited amount of knowledge at your fingertips.
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Bob Loblaw at 01:08 AM on 1 March 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9
jamesh:
"Facts". You use that word a lot. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Once again, you are posting a comment on a thread, when you have not engaged in any honest dialog in other threads where people have pointed out your errors.
As for your "facts"
3. Evaporation is not the only way oceans transfer energy away from the surface. Radiation and sensible heat (thermal energy) area also involved.
4. CO2 in water does not behave like most oher gases. If you want to learn more, there is an entire series of posts on ocean CO2 processes. You can start here:
https://skepticalscience.com/Mackie_OA_not_OK_post_0.html
5. You can learn more about volcanoes here:
https://skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm
6. You're wrong here because you're wrong in #4.
At this point, your posting behaviour here has consisted of various "facts" that aren't, with no meaningful engagement in any discussion. You jump from thread to thread with Gish Gallops of incorrect information. Your behaviour reeks of "troll".
DNFTT.
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jamesh at 00:47 AM on 1 March 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9
With all the concern re. ocean currents, Please consider the following facts about the worlds oceans: 1. oceans cover 70 percent of the earths surface. 2. oceans rest on the earths crust, which increases in temp. all the way down to about 6.8 miles, where it is very hot. 3. The oceans dispose of that heat by means of the evaporation process. 4. The ocean waters contain CO2, if the surface waters are warmed, they will release some of the disolved CO2. 5. Underneath the seas there are volcanoes, volcanic vents etc which emit CO2, heat and I don't know what else. 6. The heat itself will cause an additional release of CO2.
Moderator Response:[TD] In addition to Bob’s excellent responses to you, for your claim #2 see this.
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JARWillis at 20:38 PM on 27 February 2021Teaming up with Facebook to fight misinformation
Useful. Nothing gets you reading better than 'you're going to be surprised by this'. Link shared with our climate action network.
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Doug Bostrom at 16:12 PM on 26 February 2021Teaming up with Facebook to fight misinformation
"Drink responsibly!"
— Joe Camel
[Maybe I have that a little bit mixed up. :-) ]
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iskepticaluser at 08:13 AM on 24 February 2021Hurricanes, wildfires, and heat dominated U.S. weather in 2020
Jamesh ~
The ocean heat content (OHC) measure of heat build-up is particularly relevant (since over 90% of excess heat trapped by our thickened greenhouse blanket is stored in the oceans), and millions of readings from ARGO ocean-profiling floats plus advances in statistical analysis of those and other observations are giving us a clearer picture its evolution (though there are still discrepancies between estimates of different analyses, quite common in a relatively-new observational science). A recent paper by Cheng et al. ("Upper Ocean Temperatures Hit Record High in 2020") exposes full-depth OHC since 1960 of 380 ± 81 ZJ (that's Zettajoules = 10^21 or a billion trillion joules; a 100W light-bulb consumes 100 joules of energy per second).
Most worrying, the RATE of increase in OHC since 1986 equals almost eight times that of 1958-1985, at 9.1 ZJ per year, or roughly 10 ZJ for the entire Earth system (OHC plus heat to warm the land and atmosphere and melt ice world-wide).
This excess energy STAYS IN THE SYSTEM, cycling between ocean and atmosphere to drive everything from deeper droughts and deluges to incresingly-severe fire seasons to changing ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns, novel disease distributions, rising sea levels and attendant economic, social and, increasingly, political turmoil.
As to the SCALE of the problem, consider this. Average 1986-2019 global energy consumption - backed by everything from hydro to wind to nuclear, oil, coal and cow dung - is 0.48 ZJ per year. That means that minute by minute, hour by hour and year by year, since 1986 the planet has trapped an amount of excess heat equal to TWENTY-ONE TIMES the energy consumed by the global economy.
Given the early climate-change impacts we are already suffering, WE HAVE TO REVERSE COURSE. If atmospheric GHG (and cooling aerosol) concentrations were somehow stabilized at current levels, the planet would continue heating up (though at declining rates) until atmospheric temperatures were high enough to re-establish incoming/outgoing radiative balance at the edge of space.
But if we want to forestall worsening impacts, let alone eventually bring global temperature levels back down to those for which human civilization and biological diversity are designed, we have to somehow DRAW DOWN those GHG levels from the current 415 to around 350 ppm CO2.
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nigelj at 07:14 AM on 24 February 2021Hurricanes, wildfires, and heat dominated U.S. weather in 2020
jamesh @1
The approx 1.5 deg c warming since the industrial revolution probably isn't enough to take buildings out of their design limits and so produce obvious observable strain and certanly not failure. I used to work in the building industry. This is because buildings are designed for certain maximum temperatures plus a tolerance or margin of safety over that. However something like 3 degrees global warming will probably take buildings beyond their current design limits and produce observable / measurable problems.
Regarding asphalt in roads there is already signs of problems due to global warming as here.
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scaddenp at 06:10 AM on 24 February 2021Hurricanes, wildfires, and heat dominated U.S. weather in 2020
Jamesh, it is very unclear to me why you are posting here.
Let's get one thing very clear. If you wish to convince readers that the science is wrong, then you cannot do so by displays of ignorance. You certainly cannot disprove science by insisting it make predictions that it manifestly does not.
A "build up of heat in the environment" manifests itself as a temperature increase. A temperature increase of the observed size will definitely have effects such as we are seeing, but not more.
Here is how the game is played. If you want to dispute the science, then you point to what the science consensus says. The IPCC reports are the best way to do this, or quote from peer-reviewed research. (If you have learnt your climate science from denier sites, then chances are everything you think you know is wrong or distorted. ) Then you point to observations or papers which you think clearly show that the stated science is wrong. Beware of cherry-picked observations from denier sites. Deniers largely rely on strawmen statements about science and cherry-picking as the main rhetorical devices.
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jamesh at 01:59 AM on 24 February 2021Hurricanes, wildfires, and heat dominated U.S. weather in 2020
Mr. Henson's post on climate connections does not connect observed temperatures increases to any build up heat in the environment. If there were such a buildup we would expect to observe bridge failures, pavement failures and other structures such as hi-rise bldgs.
Moderator Response:[DB] And yet heat continues to build up in the environment, both in the atmosphere:
And in the ocean:
Presumptuous red herrings snipped.
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One Planet Only Forever at 16:07 PM on 23 February 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #8
swampfoxh,
In spite of Rob Honeycutt's response, the Reich Opinion piece you refer to (and that I read all the way through then sarcastically - but not effectively - questioned the basis for your comment) is a reasonably robust explanation of the observable history on the matter. Not being a "peer reviewed presentation of repeatable controlled experiments" does not mean it is not a robustly reasoned and defensible presentation of what has been observed to have happened.
I repeat that I see no parts of the Opinion piece being what you claim (no part is a misrepresentation). In addition, there are other evidence-based reports being presented in many other news sources that substantiate the basis and evaluation presented in the Opinion piece. And the observations of what happened in Texas are consistent with what has been observed to happen in many other places in recent history. Also, there are many books that cover the general topic with detailed observations as their basis that support the Opinion presented (it is not just this power problem in Texas).
And the problem of pursuers of wealth not considering or caring about the harm that could be caused by their maximization of personal benefit (or maximization of profit) is a major part of the climate change problem, a major reason less correction of behaviour to reduce the harm being done has occurred.
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Rob Honeycutt at 06:55 AM on 23 February 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #8
I would note to swampfoxh that the Reich article is presented as an opinion piece in the Guardian. It's not scientific research subject to peer review nor would any reasonable person confuse it for such.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:32 AM on 23 February 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #8
Dear swampfoxh,
I read the entire article you refer to and I am confused about what article you meant to refer to.
I see little basis in the article for what you claim regarding the article.
Maybe you are just making stuff up?
Moderator Response:[JH] Swampfoxh is reacting to the "Editorial of the Week" posted on the second page of this Weekly Digest.
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Hans Petter Jacobsen at 06:10 AM on 23 February 2021Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
Jan-Erik Solheim, Kjell Stordahl and Ole Humlum (SSH) published their papers 'Solar Activity and Svalbard Temperatures' and 'The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24' early in 2012. According to SSH, their Solar Cycle Model can, based on the length of a solar cycle, predict the mean temperature in the next solar cycle for some northern regions. Later the same year I programmed their Solar Cycle Model. I got the same results as they did with their implementation of the model. When the model was run with temperature series for the northern region up to and including solar cycle 23, the results satisfied the statistical test used by SSH. A closer examination with hindcasting (backtesting) revealed that the model predicted the temperatures well until the mid-1970s, but not thereafter. I wrote about this in December 2012 here at Skeptical Science in the blog post 'Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming'.
In their papers, SSH made some specific predictions for temperatures in solar cycle 24, which had just started in 2012. In 2014 I discussed the Solar Cycle Model with the lead author Solheim on a Norwegian discussion forum. He stressed that we have to wait till solar cycle 24 has ended before we can evaluate the model's predictions for that cycle. Now it has ended. The temperatures in solar cycle 24 were higher than in the previous cycle, not colder as predicted by SSH. See more details in comment 22 in the blog post I wrote here at SkS.
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swampfoxh at 01:54 AM on 23 February 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #8
The above article by Robert Reich is awfully political. Since when did SkepSci post stuff that goes after the Rich? Is it scientific to defecate on the oil company owners while lamenting the plight of "ordinary" Texans? Is Reich's rant subject to any peer review? I'm pretty sure most of those Texans, in trouble, are climate deniers and are just "getting what's coming to them" for their ignorance of the problems in the climate. Texas is a heavy Red State, they could use some climate education, but less climate politics.
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prove we are smart at 22:25 PM on 22 February 2021Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessment
Firstly, if most people like me would only read the easily understood science of how global warming works-that would be a great help for our planet. Your site here is my goto for anyone interested. Some like me, then really wade in and can give concise retorts to the fake news believers..
And that is still a major hurdle. Here is a depressing story #ClimateChange #GlobalWarming
World leaders fail to curb climate change in 2020 | DW Newshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGGTUSXeahk
And why they didn't act? , because we elected the wrong leaders. Enough Australians believed the bs and thats history now. You might say we got the govt we deserve but we need a govt the planet deserves. Perhaps those appocalyptic fires will not become just another short term memory loss and I wondered about that after reading this https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-05/australia-attitudes-climate-change-action-morrison-government/11878510
So the crux of my thoughts were formed after reading that the latest IPCC assesment for 2021-22 will be released soon. Will our politicians of most persuasions be allowed by their donors to do what we want? Will the media be helpful? Will the lure of an election cycle be enough to procrastinate another 4yrs and see what happens? I wish I could see my fellow citizens being thoughtful and people in power who can navigate a path through the many crises everyone is facing..
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Rob Honeycutt at 07:38 AM on 22 February 2021Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Klemet... Suffice to say, I don't think we're far apart in our thinking. My major concern is with more radical, aggressive elements of the vegan community because I believe they have an effect that is inverse to what they ostensibly wish to accomplish.
Given dietary choices, diet will always be a personal decision for the mere fact that people are different. All creatures have impacts on their environment. The elemental state of existence on this planet is that life steals energy from other life for survival. The larger picture is humanity's outsized impacts due to our success as a species, and the detrimental environmental effects that come with FF energy production.
Ultimately, I think we need to better capture the economic costs of the damages in the marketplace through carbon taxation systems. With that, more carbon intense calories are going to cost more and promote positive changes. The cost benefits of reducing meat consumption would come with additional health benefits. Then those personal dietary decisions also become economic and health related decisions. Then no one needs to lecture anyone else on what kind of food they should be consuming.
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Klemet at 04:35 AM on 22 February 2021Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
@Rob : Thank you for your story, Rob ! That was really interesting and touching to read : ).
I think that I can relate with some of the choices that you mentionned in your story, which can be quite difficult, especially socialy. I'd be curious to know, though, how we can (according to you) say that diet is a personal decision when the interests of others (e.g. the animals, or the environment) are directly impacted by our diet ?As for your view on the supply chain, I don't see why our views are incompatible; I think that changing the emissions linked to the different processes necessary to produce a certain amount of a certain food would change the resulting GHGs emissions associated to this food. However, that doesn't change the fact that those GHGs emissions are related to the production of this food, in the way that they would not be emitted if it were not produced.
In my mind, it's the same as comparing the ecological impacts of a smartphone; how could be it exact to not take into account every part of the process that are needed to create it ? Like mining operations for rare metals, infrastructure for the factories specialized in creating the parts, etc.
@michael sweet : I understand your view, and I do not doubt that for many people today, going vegan is not even an option : it's a fear. However, the idea I wanted to add related to the present article was that even if people dislike the idea of being vegan, it could still represent our #1 individual option to reduce our emissions (it's not, but it could be even if people don't like it).
In that way, we can easily say that many people in western countries dislike the idea of restricting the number of children they have, or to avoid taking the plane to go explore the world; yet, those seems to be two of our best individual choices to reduce our GHGs emissions, if I'm not mistaken.
Concerning the "Savoy method", I think that you might be related to Allan Savory (whose name is similar) ? But if that's so, everything I read on it in the scientific litterature makes it look like pseudosience, with many saying that it's quite dangerous. An account of that is present in the report of the Food Climate Research Network, but a more summarized account is written on Savory's wikipedia page. In addition - and I don't want to make sound like an ad hominem against Savory -, he is also responsible for the culling of more than 40 000 elephants in the 70's, as he advocated that those very elephants were destroying their natural habitat. To give him credit, he says that it's the "biggest blunder of his life" today; but I think this explains why he might have gotten a bit obsessed with his "holistic grazing" approach. So, maybe we don't "need" to become vegan as other things can be done; but it still seems like it is very useful.
Concerning your note about that vegetarian couple and their children, I don't think that it's a very sane approach to talk about individual cases when talking about the effects of a diet; especially a diet about which we have a huge risk of social bias. Meanwhile, studies seem to show that vegan children end up having the same height as non-vegetarian children. But maybe you just wanted to point out the bias, and how it would make things difficult for people to go vegan; and on that, I completly agree !
In the end, I think that I completly agree with you two, @Rob and @michael. Humanity going vegan is something that goes against a very, very strong social inertia. Yet, in the age of internet, an age where slavery is mostly illegal, where women occupy positions of power more than ever before, where we fly in the air and go into space, where our lifestyle is almost completly different from the one of any of our ancestors, who can say what will happen ?
Still, advocating for veganism "or else climate change will never be fixed" is not the right hill to die on to me too. But I think that it's OK, as many vegan activists seem to understand that it's the ethical argument (i.e. why is it okay to eat an animal for reasons other than survival ?) that needs to be focused on, and that the rest is just secondary.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:21 AM on 22 February 2021Guest post: Why avoiding climate change ‘maladaptation’ is vital
Great presentation of the importance and difficulty of considering the full set of "Sustainable Development Goals", and any new related awareness, in any effort to "assist the development of the less fortunate". Pursuing that fuller understanding is required to ensure that the "Pursuit of Improvement" is sustainable and does not cause "Harm to Others".
In many cases help for the less fortunate requires ending harm done to the less fortunate by the pursuits of, and protection of, superiority by the more fortunate.
The excusing of harm done in pursuit of benefits is a serious problem. It is the reason there has been an abject failure of the richest to "Adapt" to having to live and profit in ways that are "Not Harmful".
It is hard for the more fortunate, who developed immersed in a culture of competition for superiority in games of profit and popularity, to "Figure out what is really going on and figure out how to help others and limit harm done".
In summary, the most important adaptation is for the supposedly more advanced to figure out what changes and corrections have to be made regarding "Their Development" to limit harm done to Others, and how much they owe Others for harm that has already been done by the incorrect harmful over-development of the supposedly more advanced (including owing for the harm done by their predecessors).
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Bob Loblaw at 03:43 AM on 21 February 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #7, 2021
Jamesh @ 8:
As you seem to be struggling to find appropriate places to discuss stuff, let me try to help you.
First, The the most recent ice sheet to cover New York State would have been the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which covered pretty much all of Canada and the northern US states. It had several distinct and somewhat independent areas of motion, though. "Polar" is probably not a good descriptor for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentide_Ice_Sheet
If you want to argue that it represents evidence that climate has changed before and therefore humans can't be the cause now, then the reasons why that argument are wrong is #1 on the Most Used Climate Myths page "Climate's changed before":
https://skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm
If you want to use it to argue that climate scientists were predicting a return to ice age conditions in the 1970s, then the reasons why that argument are wrong is #11 on the Most Used Climate Myths page "Ice Age predicted in the 1970s":
https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm
If you want to use it to argue that we are now heading into another glacial period, then the reasons why that argument are wrong is #14 on the Most Used Climate Myths page "We're heading into another ice age":
https://skepticalscience.com/heading-into-new-little-ice-age.htm
If you want to use it to argue that the current warming is just a continued pattern from a previous cold period, then the reasons why that argument are wrong is #48 on the Most Used Climate Myths page "We're coming out of the Little Ice Age":
https://skepticalscience.com/coming-out-of-little-ice-age.htm
If you want to use it to argue that climate follows natural cycles and the current warming is no different, then the reasons why that argument are wrong is #56 on the Most Used Climate Myths page "It's a Natural Cycle":
https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-natural-cycle.htm
If you want to use it to argue that you know of some special factor affecting climate that climate science has ignored, and you are the only one that knows this, then you might want to go to Climate Myth #130 "Climate Skeptics are like Galileo":
https://skepticalscience.com/climate-skeptics-are-like-galileo.htm
If you want to use it to argue that humans can survive large shift in climate, then Climate Myth #197 "Humans survived past climate changes" is your destination:
https://skepticalscience.com/humans-survived-past-climate-changes.htm
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