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andy-bamford at 22:41 PM on 6 May 2019Heatwaves have happened before
Can someone please show me how global warming predicts more and hotter heat waves, and less cold waves? Simplistic common sense says that more and hotter heat waves and less cold waves measured will result in higher average global temperatures, and therefore global warming.
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SirCharles at 22:40 PM on 6 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #18
Climate change and mass extinction are going hand in hand, Nigel. Both are caused by unsustainable growth.
One out of the estimated eight million species are already in jeopardy. Including worms we need for a healthy soil, 75% of insects which are also food for birds, and 25% of all kinds of mamals. Not to forget that species are dying out BECAUSE of climate change. But we also need to stop poisonning our planet with chemicals like the total herbicide Glyphosate.
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nigelj at 17:45 PM on 6 May 2019Former climate 'denier' regrets 'how wrongheaded but certain I was'
John Kaiser is to be applauded for changing his position, something that does take courage, however if he thinks the solution to climate change is the free market plus private sector acting alone he is mistaken, because by the time the free market solves the problem the Earth will be getting like Venus. Free markets have an absolutely awful record of fixing environmental problems.
Most of the existing renewable energy achievements have been driven by government subsidies or carbon tax schemes etcetera.
People need to appreciate that government is by definition about intervention and rule setting, starting with the criminal law codes. The environment is just another issue that falls in the category of needing something from government. Not everything does, but some things do. So given most people accept the need for criminal law, its not inconsistent for the government to play some role of some sort in the climate problem with environmental laws and / or carbon fees etcetera.
The tragedy of the commonse problem means free markets and the private sector are not good at resolving environmental problems. That's just the reality.
Mitigating climate change is just going to have to be turbocharged with some level of government intervention, designed to be light handed, so perhaps carbon fee and dividend. Write a clause into the law that requires the fee to terminate when the problem is solved or reaches some appropriate level. This should alleviate worries about government excesses.
I'm not going to get down on our knees and beg people to see sense. It's time for everyone on both sides of politics to acknowledge basic realities of what works in terms of promoting change, and it has to be a blend of government and private sector and free markets.
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nigelj at 13:27 PM on 6 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #18
Regarding the biodiversity crisis, specifically the decline of pollinating insects. This is of course serious, but some have hyped it to the same level as the climate crisis which doesn't look justified. Basically I have read a lot of claims that decline in insects would literally wipe out agriculture, and to satisfy my curiosity a quick google search shows a more nuanced picture.
Approx. 30% of food crops depend on pollinators mostly bees, and this is typically fruits etc not staple food products. General article here. Research article discussed in Nature Journal here.Hand pollination is also possible. This is not to downplay the problem but it looks like climate change is the more pressing concern to me.
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scaddenp at 07:01 AM on 6 May 201910 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Published in "Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics", home of Scarfetta's astrological mathturbations. That should have been a red flag. Thanks MAR.
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Eclectic at 09:57 AM on 5 May 201910 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
MA Rodger @101 ,
Quite so. The Varatsos paper is a fine lot of nonsense !
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MA Rodger at 02:56 AM on 5 May 201910 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Wilmer_T @100,
The paper you refer to is Varotsos & Efstathiou (2019) 'Has global warming already arrived?', the latest serving from a pair of nonsense-writers. Concerning increased height of the tropopause (fingerprint #9), this is found occurring in climate models and within atmispheric measurements, as shown by Santer et al (2001) cited by the OP above and this finding continues to be observed (eg Xian & Homeyer 2018).
Varotsos & Efstathiou ignore this serious work entirely and instead use UAH TP satellite data to assert there is no increase in tropopause height because there is no increasing trend in UAH TP. The use of such data is mind-blowingly stupid, as worthless as using a twelve inch ruler to measure the width of a human hair. UAH TP does not measure tropopause temperature. It measures a wide range of temperatures from the surface up to 24 km. Thus it is measuring the cooling stratosphere as well as the warming troposphere, two strong signals which will overwhelm entirely any tropopause tempoerature trend. The figure below is sourced from Spencer at UAH.
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Eclectic at 12:33 PM on 4 May 2019There is no consensus
Philippe Chantreau is quite correct that the question of the Consensus has become trivial and largely irrelevant. The science (of AGW) is settled enough for practical purposes [the practical purposes being the political policies for dealing with the climate situation]. And the "numerical consensus" is well over 99% and climbing ever closer to 100%.
Nevertheless, this thread here stays open for those who wish to split hairs about what are nowadays irrelevant trivialities. ;-)
Pl , you are correct in stating that AGW is "a thing" in the sense of a reality. But the "A Thing" phrase is so widely applied to all sorts of abstract concepts & ephemeral fashions, that it becomes quite ambiguous and unhelpful in our discussion here.
The surveys assessing the state of the (climate) science show that the (scientific) consensus, as measured by the published scientific papers in recent years, is in effect 100%. Over the years, there's been a tiny (and reducing) number of "contrarian" papers ~ and these papers have been mutually contradictory in their expressed concepts, and have utterly failed to present any valid evidence to support themselves.
In the far looser terminology of the Consensus in the form of an opinion poll of scientists . . . surely the only worthwhile poll can be made of scientists who are well-informed on climate science and who have definite expertise in this field.
Even rather old studies [such as the Cook 2013 study] show that the greater the climate expertise of the scientists, the closer to 100% is their "consensus of opinion".
And surely the whole concept of numerical consensus loses any useful meaning if the assessments include more and more of the ill-informed and the deliberately ignorant. Surely there can be no real value in a consensus that includes the opinions of blowpipe-toting hunters in the upper Orinoco River or iPhone-toting hipsters in the upper Missouri River.
Pl , the "non-binary" question you mention, is one that has been much discussed in years past. This, and your "original points", are all examples of imprecision of expression; and I must yet again beg you to clarify what you are driving at.
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william5331 at 05:58 AM on 4 May 2019What's Earth's ideal temperature?
The ideal temperature is the one in which we have built our cities, to a large extent where the sea meets the ocean, the temperature in which we have developed our crops and the infrastructure to grow them. If the world had been three degrees warmer as we developed into a modern society, that would be the ideal temperature. Our cities would now be further upsteam from where they are today (on the higher sea shore) and our agriculture would have been developed over the years to fit this higher temperature and different climate zones. Read Plows Plagues and Petroleum by Ruddiman for a pretty convincing argument why this present interglacial period has been so much more stable than past ones.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:47 AM on 4 May 2019What's Earth's ideal temperature?
nigelj,
"The backfire effect seems to happen mostly when people are challenged over ideas that define their worldview and sense of self..."
Improved awareness and understanding of climate science leads to awareness and understanding of the required corrections of developed human activity, which cannot be isolated from the realization of the related corrections of perceptions of status that are required.
Trying to improve understanding of climate science can directly challenge people's ideas that define their worldview and sense of self. People willing to improve/expand their worldview and correct their sense of selfworth are not the problem. The socioeconomic-political systems encouraging people to be more Egoist are undeniably developing people who want to be as big a part of the problem (benefiting as much as possible from harmful unsustainable actions) as they can get away with.
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pl at 01:06 AM on 4 May 2019There is no consensus
Philippe Chantreau @795,
assuming you are commenting my "nitpicking" here. I believe I already stated I don't consider these considerations critical to the actual topic of AGW and I don't claim it has high priority on any related to-do list. However, I also consider the question how a consensus in measured and how the resulting "numerical level" is adjusted for apparent systemic biases to be relevant - both in general (as some kind of methodological best practice, regardless of the field) and also in the field of climate science, if not for anything else, at least to prevent possible attacks from deniers. I'm afraid people waste time on many less useful things than that.
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pl at 00:54 AM on 4 May 2019There is no consensus
Eclectic @794,
first, you must excuse some inaccuracy in my text, English is not my strongest skill. By "AGW is a thing" as a simplified statement of the consensus proposition I simply mean "GW is happening and human influence on it is significant" - or similar statement where I don't expect any disagreement.
You did not address my original points though - you expressed your view and opinions - which BTW I don't have many reasons to disagree with - but what I was looking for was to see, how these variables (and maybe I added another one in later comments) were controlled for in studies establishing the level of consensus - I haven't seen that in the study I linked to, nor in the comments.
Also, I wouldn't call it "objections" - I'm simply interested in some details of the "consensus measurement" methodology.
Regarding the "non-binary nature", it's rather trivial, see final paragraph of @793. No true scientist can claim something with absolute 100% confidence, despite human brains have tendency to use such heuristic. It's not an off-topic here, because - let me quote myself: We would probably agree that it's something completely different to claim "90+% of scientists agree, that the probability of AGW is above x" when the x is 50% compared to say x=99%.
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greyowl at 23:32 PM on 3 May 2019Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
Thanks very much, Rodger, your explanation exactly answers myquestions.
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nigelj at 08:09 AM on 3 May 2019What's Earth's ideal temperature?
And of course I recognise that vested interests and political ideology lead to denial of science, but the research seems to suggest convincing at least some of these people to reconsider may not be impossible.
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nigelj at 07:39 AM on 3 May 2019What's Earth's ideal temperature?
Well said. Something related: It's often been said that facts don't convince doubters , (like pointing out the ideal temperature is what we have right now and relatively rapid change is what causes problems).
According to my paper copy of Scientific American dated march 2019, in an article called "why we believe in conspiracy theories" (paraphrasing) research has traditionally suggested facts, logic and evidence don't convince doubters, and just causes doubters to "dig their heels in deeper", the so called "backfire effect", but more recent research suggests this effect is rare.
New research finds pointing out logical inconsistencies in conspiracy theories, and facts about political issues does have persuasive effects on people. The research concludes backfire effect is more tenuous than previously thought. The backfire effect seems to happen mostly when people are challenged over ideas that define their their worldview and sense of self, so this is something to avoid doing.
The article also showed how encouraging analytical thinking helps.
So perhaps countering climate denialists with facts is not such a waste of time afterall. I have always had a strong instinct this is the case. Imho there will of course be a few people that will never change their minds on climate change (there is an actual flat earth society, and these guys are serious) but I would suggest this is a pretty small minority of people.
And personally I think pointing out logical falacies is important as well, and sadly something that was not well executed by media in general and the science community in the earlier days of the debate, but is better now thank's to things like John Cooks work.
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ilfark2 at 04:55 AM on 3 May 2019Rebellious Times
Nick Palmer and SkS generally: While Beckwith and McPherson seem a bit out there, there does seem to be an evolving concensus that many things are happening much faster than expected, esp. in the arctic (and, per Beckwith, and you can track down the paper he mentions) they just strated tracking arctic Nitrous Oxide.
Combine this with Richard Alley's work (among others, I'm sure) that abrupt climate change very likely happened before plus the idea in the 1990s that 1.5 might lead to feedback loops and 2 degrees certainly would, wouldn't it be better to err on the side of 0 emissions by tomorrow (which would save lifes via air quality among other causes) ?
Last I checked, methane is increasing in a quite an unexplained, unaccounted for clip (of course Beckwith et al point to the vast area of perma frost not monitored)...
Point being, yes many of the studies of feedback systems in the arctic are in first stages, can we afford to wait the decade it would take to verify their findings?
As Richard Alley said in his presentation to the AGS years ago, there might only be a 5% chance, but there is a 5% the climate flips.
If that happens it very likely could be PETM or post Siberian Traps.
Or am I missing something? Did you guys update this site to include studies that explain the increases in methane and CO2 above the arctic? That wamer soils are starting to be become carbon sources? That warmer oceans are beginning to become a less effective sink possibly leading to a source?
Even if all this is inaccurate, there are something like 122,000 coal fired plants being built around the world now. Tars sands, fracking... all this has to be stopped. How can we get the world to pull together in a democratic way other than deposing market systems and aknowledging we have to plan our resource use and help each other to live sustainably on the planet via changing energy and agriculture?
In terms of material necessity (food, shelter, healthcare), the proportion off the population that does anything is miniscule. If we shared these jobs in a democratic way, expanded education and research, created walking cities we could drop emissions drastically in a day.
Free Catalonia of the 1930s is a good model (among others).
And as XR points out, fear can lead to freeze, flight or fight.
But, again, if you've debunked all this, point me to the article and I'll happily sleep better.
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Wilmer_T at 03:46 AM on 3 May 201910 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
It would be inteeresting to hear some comments to this more recent paper related to (9)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682618305030?sf207293750=1#bib9
/Wilmer T
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link. Please learn to do this yourself with the link tool in the comments editor.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:47 AM on 3 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
nigelj@16,
I agree that the article could have added clarifying points regarding the statement that only a small protion of impacts are estimeated. But the following statements in the article indicate that the costs determined by study were based on a limited evaluation.
"examines 22 different climate economic impacts related to health, infrastructure, electricity, water resources, agriculture, and ecosystems."
"The challenge is that humans tend to most easily visualize and focus on economic impacts, but it’s difficult to quantify the costs of many climate change consequences like lost health and lives, trauma and suffering, or species extinctions and reduced biodiversity."
"The Martinich-Crimmins report does not take into consideration impacts of worsening extreme weather events on crops, and it therefore underestimates agricultural losses. The research anticipates that although yields will decline for most staple crops – especially for barley, corn, cotton, and rice, but with the exception of wheat – farmers will adapt by using more farmland, changing the crops they grow, and increasing prices. As a result, most of the climate change impacts on the agricultural sector would be passed on to food consumers, in effect, to everybody."
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nigelj at 07:41 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
Regarding the article is not entirely clear why "only a small portion of the impacts of climate change are estimated". Its also not clear if infrastructure damage includes more extreme weather as only sea level rise and associated flooding is mentioned.
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nigelj at 06:48 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
JW Rebel @11, capitalism is defined in my dictionary as private ownership of the means of production combined with the profit motive. Limited liability companies are a typical although non essential component. I have no quibble with that definition, and its probably reasonably universally understood.
But definitions are indeed so important, and where we often end up talking at cross purposes where people are working with different definitions.
I think what you have done is given a good description of the serious problems capitalism can cause at least regarding capitalism in its pure, "laissez faire" form. This is less well understood. At the very least one could see this as the toxic side effects of capitalism. Monopoly capitalism seems like another problem to me, aka the giants like facebook.
The trouble is collective ownership of capital and the means of production does not have a great history. (fwiw I tend to favour a middle way version of capitalism as in Scandinavia that combines capitalist and socialist ideas in a practical way. I'm all ears if anyone has a better idea that is actually realistic.)
I also agree with Nick Palmers suggestions on full environmental cost accounting. There are many things like this that could bring some sort of private ownership based free market (as in free trade) economy into some fort of balance with the environment, or at least "minimise harm". It does mean a regulatory approach, but regulation makes sense in areas like environmental impacts where companies don't adequately self regulate. Of course its very hard work to get such ideas adopted, or into legislation, but alternative more radical economic reform, building completely new economic systems etc, is also hard work as well and carries risks and may not work.
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nigelj at 06:29 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
Jef @9, I respect your opinions normally, but its none too clear what you are saying here. I have to guess that you are saying everything humans do leads to climate change and other forms of pollution, and so more of the same can only make the problem worse, so we are all doomed?
But isn't that a gross generalisation? Some things impact the environment more than others. For example industrial farming is harsher on the environment than organic and regenerative farming, although both have impacts and nothing is likely to be perfect. So don't we at least have choices? For example, renewable energy is less destructive to the environment than fossil fuels?
Or are you saying people are so short of money nothing is left to combat climate change?
And given what you say (whatever it is) what are your solutions?
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nigelj at 06:27 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
M Sweet @5, surely you realise from the context that I meant by "throwing money at the problem" I loosely meant building out new and/ or replacement infrastructure? I said nothing to suggest it would be an expensive exercise, with no economic benefits. I agree with your other points.
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william5331 at 05:50 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
In the run up to the recent presidential elections in America, when all the Democratic candidates were asked "What is the most important issue today", the only candidate that replied "Climate Change" was Bernie Sanders. He is running again this time.
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JWRebel at 05:03 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
@2 NigelJ
You never defined "capitalism", a concept first coined by Marx, which is often bandied about as though it is self-evident what it means. Some think free markets (didn't ancient Egyptian farmers have pretty free markets?) whereas others hear "free markets" to mean legalized racketeering by favoured "legal persons" (incorporated collectives with special legal immunities). I will take a stab at a definition to start the thought process.
Capitalism is a historical development in human economic organization and production where all the surplus value created by various social partners accrues only to the private owner, thus fostering scarcity amid plenty in a ruthless competition between businesses involved for even more capital intensive efficiency, where social costs, ecological burdens and other "externalities" are artificially compartementalized outside of the profit and balance accounts, e.g., think of the paint factory that costs (the community) more to clean up once defunct and bankrupt than all the profits generated over the last 100 years of its existence.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:34 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
Money is, and is not, the problem. Behaviours and developed preferences, because of money games, are the problem. Examples of the problematic preferences and behaviours are:
- What people develop a willingness to try to get away with to 'get money'
- What people develop a desire to spend money on
- How easily people can become slaves because of desires to appear superior relative to others (either becoming debt slaves or immoral harmful work slaves)
The socioeconomic-political systems driven by competition for perceptions of status through power, popularity or profit are the problem, especially when the powerful science of misleading marketing can be successfully abused by people who harmfully immorally win undeserved perceptions of status.
The developed results of those fatally flawed socioeconomic-political systems are harmful unsustainable Egoism rather than helpful sustainable Altruism. The fatal flaws of the systems must be corrected in order for Altruism to effectively govern and limit what is going on. That is the only way to achieve the required corrections for the benefit of the future of a robust diversity of humanity fitting into a robust diversity of other life on this, or any other, amazing planet.
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MA Rodger at 03:13 AM on 2 May 2019Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
greyowl @25,
To answer your second question first, while the atmosphere consists of gases that are transparent for the IR radiation emitted by the earth (the dry atmosphere comprises 78.08% N2, 20.95% O2 & 0.93% Ar), the important consideration is how far an IR photon can travel before encountering a GHG that will absorb it. Bascally, air has masses of molecules and even at 400ppm (or 0.04%), a photon in the 15 micron waveband will encounter a CO2 and be absorbed in a matter of a few metres. It thus has 12,000m of atmospheric depth to negotiate in some very short steps.
And the first of your questions, the importance of CO2 is two-fold. Firstly it is a very long lived GHG and will persist in the atmosphere for tens of thousands of years. CO2 differs from H2O in this respect which is quickly lost from the atmosphere if the temperature drops. Secondly, CO2 is by far the most abundant long-lived GHG. It provides roughly 20% of our planet's GH effect. Much of the rest of the GH effect results from H2O in its various atmospheric forms but the level of H2O is dependent on that 20% CO2 GH effect. With no CO2 there would be trivial levels of H2O.
Perahps I should add that these are direct answers to your two questions and may not hit the nail-you-were-seeking entirely squarely on the head.
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greyowl at 01:53 AM on 2 May 2019Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
How is it that CO2 has such a dominant effect athough its concentration in the atmosphere is so small? Why doesn't the low-energy radiation from the earth's surface simply escape through the atmosphere (N2, O2) into space?
Moderator Response:[PS] You might also like to look at the "CO2 is just a trace gas" myth for more understanding.
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jef12506 at 00:58 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
Nigelj- I never said capitalism or singled out any economic system.
Money, which is what every person on the planet needs so as not to suffer and die, is what 99% of the population spends most if not all of their waking hours doing everything and anything they can to get.
This simple fact is what accounts for 99.9% of all polution.
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Nick Palmer at 00:33 AM on 2 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
@nigelj 3
"The solution looks to me like we have to modify capitalism enough to make it less harsh on the environment. It's certainly clear enough that neoliberal capitalism is problematic and has to change"
Yup. A carbon tax would go a long way towards sorting out emissions and if the revenues were all fed back to the taxpayers, that would keep the right wing happier. For things beyond 'just' climate change, sorting out the whole 7-billion-people-want-a-good-lifestyle impact on the planet, I think 'full cost accounting', 'ecological economics', environmental 'economics' or some other variant of the idea which states that in a monetised transactional economy, things will only get valued enough if a price is put on them. A business will, indeed be forced to, pollute the environment external to its operations if it costs it nothing to do so. Put the cost of polluting 'externalities' onto the accountant's bottom line profitability of a company and free market pressures will steer companies to try and minimise those external costs to maximise their profitability. Far more efficient than passing laws to control pollution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_full-cost_accounting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics -
One Planet Only Forever at 00:17 AM on 2 May 2019Rebellious Times
nigelj @15,
Agreed. Describing the behaviour in detail is better than just using a label. However, Neo-Liberal is a better label than the far more generic Conservative.
And the solution can be fairly simply described.
Altruistic helpful improvement of awareness and understanding and its application to correct harmful unsustainable developments and pursue and improve on the Sustainable Development Goals is what is required.
However, the hard task is getting everyone to understand that any activity or institution, not just capitalism, needs to be governed and limited by that Helpful Altruism. And that the higher the status a person has the higher the requirement for them to be helpful that way. There would be no expectation that the poorest and least fortunate would be helpful or have any influence. So anyone of higher perceived status not wanting to be more helpful can justifiably be claimed to be choosing to be less influential and be relegated (penalized if necessary) down to the lower levels of the poorer and least fortunate. They do not deserve any perceptions of higher status than their chosen level of helpfulness.
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wideEyedPupil at 23:11 PM on 1 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
@nigelj activist works as Greta says. changing the system is as important as actiing within the system, we need both, at the same time, in short order. All of the above when it comes to cliamte and even then who knows how bad it will get b/c of tipping points we may have already crossed, no cliamte scientist can be sure we havent. We just must do the best each of us can as limited humans in limited orgs and systems.
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wideEyedPupil at 23:08 PM on 1 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
sorry, was their any confirmation analysis that the USA as a political and economic enitity will exist in 2090? I agree this kind of analysis is overly conservative and fails to be cognisation of the inabililty to responded (even rich antions) when a nation gets hit by compounding catastrophic event i.e. health epidemic + crop failure/food scaricty + infrastructure collapse + population movement + hostilities/civil unrest/civil war + governece failure + new exrteme weather events on the back of all that.
There was an online futurecasting thing called "superstruct" IIRC many years ago at they had people look at extreme events in five or six seperate areas like health, farming/food, climate, population movments, war, resource scarity and even just a few combined could paralys many countries abililty to respond to new events. But when CC was put in the mix many professions in these fields and disaster responce were saying it was potentially catastrophic in major ways, serious break down of law and order, millions of deaths etc etc -
michael sweet at 22:32 PM on 1 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
Nigelj,
I think you are wrong that "the only realistic way of mitigating climate change is probably to "throw money at the problem".
Many of the power plants in the USA are old and nearing the end of their lifetime. New ones need to be built to replace tehm. We have the choice: build new fossil plants or we can build renewable plants to replace them.
Many researchers have shown that it is cheaper to build out renewable energy than to build out fossil fuels. Our chice is to build out fossil plants and line the pockets of current oligarths like Rex Tillerson or build out renewable energy and all be much healthier since air pollution will be so much lower.
Sometime in the future the fracking industry will go belly up and gas prices will skyrocket. If we build out renewable energy it is already cheaper. In the future fossil energy can only go up in price as less remains in the ground. A significant part of coal's problem is that they have mined all the easy to mine coal and remaining coal is more expensive to mine. Mines in the American west and Australia are lower grade coal which is more expensive to mine for the same amount of energy.
Argue "Save money, build renewable energy" not "throw money at the problem".
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Mentor at 22:29 PM on 1 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
If climate change will cost the US only hundreds of billions US$ by 2090, this is peanuts and nothing will be done. It must cost hundreds of trillions, only then something will be done probably.
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nigelj at 17:27 PM on 1 May 2019Rebellious Times
OPOF @ 8 neoliberalism is probably a preferable term to pointing at conservatives, but is still not ideal because it means different things to different people. It loosely includes deregulation, privatisation and free trade etc. I think neoliberalism gives the private sector excessive power but we should not go back to protectionist trade.
What we really have to do is articulate an alternative system. Countries like Finland and Norway have quite good socio economic systems, although its hard to sum it up briefly. Most problems have been solved somewhere in the world. It's no coincidence that Scandinavia are doing ok on climate change mitigation.
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nigelj at 16:54 PM on 1 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
So in conclusion, therefore the only realistic way of mitigating climate change is probably to "throw money at the problem". The problem is fossil fuels, and realistic alternatives do actually exist, and that means spending money and working within the capitalist system, more or less. Not easy of course, but I would contend probably more likely to happen than everyone abandoning capitalism completely, or making radical reductions in energy use.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:46 PM on 1 May 2019Rebellious Times
I agree that claiming something horrible will be happening much sooner than it actually will happen is unhelpful. However, it is important to point out the most horrible collective result that could develop as a result of everyone's lack of interest in corrective actions, or their belief that only those people who care should solve the problem themselves (expecting others to solve a problem while you make it worse is worse than irrational).
Socioeconomic-political systems are harmfully and insidiously encouraging people to develop:
- Less concern for things that will happen further in the future. It is not rational to consider a harmful event to be less of a concern if it is further in the future (a broken leg is a broken leg). But many people tend to react and think that way.
- less concern for things that will happen to people they are unlikely to know or care about. Something bad happening to a person cannot rationally be diminished in severity based on 'how well acquainted you are to the person who is suffering' (a person harmed is not less harmed because you do not know them well).
- less concern for things that an individual can think they are only contributing a small amount to. The collective total of actions is the reality. It is not rational to think that individual contributions to an accumulating problem are irrelevant. Every bit adds to the problem.
Issues like climate science (and there are many issues like it), suffer a lack of corrective action because the status-quo socioeconomic-political systems develop harmful irrational ways of thinking that resist correction.
Developing an effective ethical solution within a status-quo that encourages unethical attitudes to develop may not be possible. It may be like that classic description of Insanity. Presenting shocking claims (shock therapy) may be required to bring about the required corrections of thinking that have developed in the status-quo.
As an example it is incorrect to talk about the temperature increase that will occur by 2100. That may be meaningful to scientists, but what really matters politically is the highest temperature that will be created by the accumulated harmful human impacts. It may even be politically appropriate to present what that future would look like with an RCP far exceeding 8.5, combined with the statement that everyone reasonably wealthy today who is resisting correction of their way of life, demanding no loss of perceptions of prosperity or status because of the required correction, is immorally contributing to the creation of that horrific harmful future. The wealthier they are, the more immoral their resistance to correction is.
That change of perception, increased perception that the resisters of 'climate science and its identified corrections of what has developed' are harmful immoral actors, may be required to effectively rapidly reduce the amount of harm being done to future generations.
The past 30 years seem to indicate that compromising to accommodate everyone's personal sovereign interests, no ruffled feathers among the peacocks, will not achieve the rationally required result of rapidly ending the individual contributions of harm to future generations.
Connecting the worst of the possible futures to the worst of the wealthiest is not wrong. Rhetorically tarring and feathering the worst of the wealthy peacocks by pointing out that they are the most immoral and least deserving of respect in the population should not be required, but that depends on how resistant to helping others, especially the future of humanity, they choose to try to be.
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nigelj at 12:51 PM on 1 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
Jef, I have also considered whether money and the established economic system is the cause of the climate problem, and whether more of the same is capable of fixing the problem. However its simplistic to say capitalism is the cause of the problem. Taking just one example the soviet union still burned oil and used money. Even if we argue that the "industrial economy" is the cause of climate change, and this can be obviously argued, the alternatives like agrarian communities are not without their own problems.
And the trouble is radically different alternatives like alternative communities based on self sufficient living, bartered goods, and shared ownership have been tried for decades and have a history of failure, and it's clear few people want that sort of life. In addition, if you are suggesting we try to fix the climate problem with mostly just drastic reductions to use of energy, we will impoverish people and again its not realistic to me that it would ever happen even if we wanted it to.
The solution looks to me like we have to modify capitalism enough to make it less harsh on the environment. It's certainly clear enough that neoliberal capitalism is problematic and has to change. Finland's socio economic system is a viable alternative in some ways. Perhaps more use could be made of not for profit companies. We obviously need to accept the state has a legitimate, useful role in legislating environmental protection.
And obviously there is a realistic case to waste less energy, recycle more, and to be less materialistic. Anything else might sound nice, but you have to ask yourself can you seriously see people embracing it?
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michael sweet at 09:35 AM on 1 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #17
This article at Thinkprogress describes a poll from CNN that claims 95% of Democratic or Cemocratic leaning voters consider climate change was very important or somewhat important for a candidate to work on.
A similar poll in December indicated 56% of Republicians supported a carbon tax.
Thinkprogress is a liberal news site and sometimes stretches the data but it is a great sign that climate is on the political radar. There are rumors that the Trump campaign is putting together a list of "climate change victories"!!!
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nigelj at 07:13 AM on 1 May 2019Rebellious Times
This is my take on the Truth issue.
There seems to be a good argument emerging that the IPCC reports are conservative in some respects, for example they do not include certain particular feedbacks related to the arctic area. This really needs to be addressed pretty urgently if its the case. This is not to rubbish the reports, which seem very good to me on the whole.
And while the IPCC underestimated the decline of arctic ice as pointed out by extinction rebellion, basic warming estimates have been slightly over (emphasis on slightly) so it cancels out. But the bottom line is I think there are some problems in the reports.
And I have noticed that the summary for policy makers is very muted in its tone, for example talking about good certainty that there will be more heatwaves, but to me totally failing to get across just how severe those heatwaves could become. The summary for policy makers is good on the science, but it communicates in a way that is a bit over nuanced doesn't get across the serious risks and very real possibilities, and it's the document that people read.
The IPCC reports do talk about the possibility of warming considerably exceeding 4 degrees c by 2300 but it gets lost in the fine print in the body of the report that people can easily miss. Likewise there is new research on hothouse earth and climate tipping points. These things need to be better bought to the attention of the public, but one suspects that if they are in the next IPCC report they will be lost in the detail and all but invisible.
I don't think policy should be based on some "reasonably likely scenario". We have to look at worst case scenarios even if they are low probability because the stakes are so high as others have suggested. If we trigger run away warming, there is no nice blue planet close by we can colonise.
But worst case scenarios have to be evidence based. There is evidence sea level rise could well exceed IPCC estimates of 1 metre this century, but claims of 5 - 10 metres this century made by a couple of scientists look hard to explain to me.
And I don't think exaggerated claims help our cause. Guy Macpherson claims humanity would be extinct within ten years due to climate change here. This is obviously in the realms of fantasy. People will think that if one climate expert is crazy perhaps all climate scientists are crazy, because they are looking for a way of doing that to avoid confronting the climate problem.
Of couse climate change will cause huamity problems and increased mortaility, and is almost certain to cause many other species to go extinct, and will exacerbate a very concerning decline in insect numbers.
The writer David Wallace Wells latest book seems to capture the dire risks of climate change in a slightly more soundly based way.
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scaddenp at 07:09 AM on 1 May 2019Rebellious Times
Nick, it annoys me too that many environmental activists run with the idea of picking the worst case scenarios so as to motivate the public or the belief that by pushing to one extreme, then you can shift the outcome closer to a desirable outcome. Long ago, I attended a talk from one activist/analyst that had a lot of examples about how ineffective this was in shifting government policy. It was too easy for officials to demonstrate the exaggerated nature or even falseness of claims, discrediting activists and allowing politicians to score points in debate against them. By constrast, if officials on investigation found that activists were underestimating the problem, the politicians or at least ministry officials would tend to act.
However, it does depend somewhat on extent to which activists do capture the public imagination. If more than 60% of electorate are sympathetic then politicians feel vunerable if opposing. I really wish we could get action on a whole host of issues with a "just the facts" approach but sadly democracies dont work that way.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:47 AM on 1 May 2019Rebellious Times
Nick Palmer,
Let me present 'the basis for the design and construction of structures' and relate it to 'the basis of design and construction of the planet humans can survive on' and see if that changes your mind about the validity of concerns regarding 'extremely unlikely things, but still potential real things'.
The design codes for Structures that have been developed by most developed and developing nations require a high degree of certainty that the structure will function successfully through a period of up to 100 years. To do that, there needs to be less than 2% chance of inadequacy for the combinations of things hat could lead to failure like lower than designed for quality of materials, or more severe than designed for conditions being experienced.
That means that for a structure to be considered reasonably reliable through 100 years a design that leaves a 2% chance of failure is thought to be reasonable, as long as in the event of damage to the structure people can safely exit with the structure being repaired or rebuilt as required before it is deemed suitable for continued use.
Now relate that to the one and only planet that humanity is certain to have a chance of surviving on for the next 1 billion years. What level of likelihood of unacceptable damage done with repair or reconstruction required before it is able to be re-occupied is acceptable? Any chance that is greater than 'None' seems absurd.
The popularity of Other perceptions is a serious problem. Compromising the degree of concern by saying 'things may not be as bad as they might be' doesn't sound Helpful. It can even be extremely harmful if it delays the required improved awareness and understanding needed to support the required correction of developed harmful and unsustainable activities.
Too many times in the past humanity has twiddled it thumbs evading the need to externally act to limit the harmful results of 'Sovereignty' because it is hoped that those pursuing harmful selfish acts under the 'supposedly impenetrable defensive shield of sovereignty' will choose to change their minds and behave better.
Allowing sovereignty to shield harmful Egoism is a serious threat to the future of humanity.
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John Mason at 02:20 AM on 1 May 2019Rebellious Times
Hi Nick,
Coming from the ancient and dogged of SkS, I can sympathise! I do not believe that adopting AMEG's stuff is especially sound. It's not supported by hard evidence. But at the same time, we have created an atmosphere not seen since at least the mid-Pliocene. That we know from hard evidence. There will be wide-ranging consequences (there already are). XR are a very new group and have done important stuff by sheer dint of numbers, and I do not think they have done so by just messaging. Lots of us have seen biodiversity decline severely in our lifetimes. I remember the Cotswolds as a boy. Very different now.
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Nick Palmer at 01:57 AM on 1 May 2019Rebellious Times
I'm uneasy about Extinction Rebellion's 'tell the truth' demand. The 'truth' they are telling their supporters to get them motivated to me looks quite a lot like 'reverse denialism' inasmuch as they cherry pick the very worst projections/predictions, the words of the most 'edgy' scientists and scientifc pundits such as Beckwith, MacPherson, Anderson and use cherry picked realities, such as the faster than expected polar ice loss rates, and that German nature reserve study on flying insects, to create a narrative that we are imminently doomed unless we adopt a 'war' mentality. Their headline net carbon neutrality by 2025 target has been criticised by Dr Adam Levy (ClimateAdam on Youtube) as not only just politically very unlikely but also physically impossible too...
I've ploughed through 3hrs+ of the organisers' videos and they make a big deal of that 'resilience centre' study that basically multiplied all the low-probability-high-impact scenarios together which basically asked what would happen if all the worst things that could happen actually happened - rather like someone who places a ten horse accumulator bet on rank outsiders and expects to get rich quick!
Whilst I believe that for risk assessment purpose such low probability aspects absolutely should not be dismissed I am preety sure, based on what I have seen that ER are promoting the 'ten horse accumulator' as the actual mainstream science which isn't being told to the public to get that public on to the streets protesting.
Anyone who has been fighting denialism for years will know that the denialosphere keep lists of silly or unwise things scientists, pro-climate campaigners such as Al Gore, etc etc have said (such as Viner's 'kids won't know what snow is anymore' remarks) and they wheel them out endlessly for many years afterwards. I think the rhetoric from the organisers of ER looks like a new source for the denailists to use to smear more moderate scientsists and the science itself. -
jef12506 at 00:48 AM on 1 May 2019Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090
So pay the bill and be done with it. Seriously this kind of analysis is less than worthless as it implies that we can "fix" this by throwing tons of money at it now, or pay later. Both are flat out wrong.
This only goes to prove my comments that money is the #1 reason why we will either do nothing or the wrong things as long as we can all keep making money.
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rayates55 at 23:52 PM on 30 April 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #17
I have a question. There are many articles about this familiar positive feedback look from melting permafrost: higher temps melt permafrost which allows decomposition of organic matter that releases methane and CO2 into the atmosphere which traps more heat.
But is there must also be a local positive feedback loop, possibly many times stronger and faster, that works like this:
Higher temps melt permafrost which allows decomposition of organic matter. Decomposition is itself an exothermic process directly melts more permafrost.
The temperature boost from decomposition is not a small matter - put your hand into a compost pile sometime. It can be hot. I do not have any quantitative analysis (please provide any you can), but it seems that in the right circumstances there could be runaway local reactions that melt permafrost to deep levels very quickly.
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swampfoxh at 08:56 AM on 30 April 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #17
When are we going to admit that Animal Agriculture is around 50% of global emissions?. We go after the fossil fuel industries (which we should) and ignore the elephant in the room. Animal Ag has been flying under the radar for the last 50 years of climate change discourse. Animal Ag is primarily responsible for deforestation, desertification, eutrophication of the oceans, significant acidification of the oceans and outsized NOx emissions, wild animal habitat loss, outsized fresh water use, polluted watersheds, untreatable communicable diseases, raising, slaughtering, packing, transportation, storage and even freezers and their associate refrigerant chemicals...not to mention methane emissions. And it doesn't even end there...those are the bigger ones. SKS has an evaluation on Animal Ag emissions, but frankly, it doesn't count everything. The World Bank commissioned WorldWide Watch to take a look at Animal Ag's impact...they came up with 51% about a decade ago. Animal Ag needs to be revisited and if the numbers WorldWatch came to aren't close, we need a new look by the scientific community... and new action to change the food marketplace from animal products to plants.
Moderator Response:[DB] Off-topic snipped. Please read this link before placing any comments on it, including the comments.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:07 AM on 30 April 2019Rebellious Times
John Mason included the very important clarification that the political group causing problems is Neo-liberal, not Conservative.
The harmful actions of Neo-liberal groups are not just denial of climate science and resistance to the required Climate Action corrections of what has developed. They try to promote and prolong many other unsustainable unjust pursuits of personal interest.
In Alberta, where I live, and in many other places, the Neo-liberals learned that they can increase their chances of winning power by uniting with social fundamentalists (change resistant believers in the superiority of their identifiable Tribes - religious or cultural). And they learned to try to be the only, or vastly larger, 'Conservative' named political group in order to also get the votes of people who have grown up Conservative (meaning: grown up to believe that they Must vote for the Conservative - change resisting - candidate)
It costs a Neo-liberal very little to give Fundamentally Intolerant Tribal people what they want. And those Fundamentalists will instinctively passionately (without serious consideration) support any group with leadership that appears to be willing to support and excuse their socially unsustainable and harmful beliefs and actions.
The unacceptability of Uniting government power with religious beliefs was well understood by the Founders of the USA. Had they experienced more recent history they likely would have also understood the importance of separation of government power from any social fundamentalists, and from the interests of the wealthiest.
It is very important to clarify that the Neo-liberals and the social fundamentalists they can be seen uniting with are not Conservatives. They are undeniably corrupting correction-resistant influences on the Right.
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scaddenp at 07:44 AM on 30 April 2019The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
Ddahl44 - straight answer on aerosols - yes. Clean Air acts have enhanced GW. Continuously pumping aerosols into the stratosphere (have to keep doing it as aerosols naturally reduce over quite short time spans) is one of the geoengineering options spotted. On the plus side, clean air makes solar panels more effective and of course it is nice to be able to breath.
The moon is a suitable natural laboratory but I agree that you have to include all factors into the radiative calculation (not a simple process) to account for the observed temperatures. (The effect on no atmosphere is also obvious when consider temperature difference between parts of surface in full sun and say the shadowed part of a crater.
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nigelj at 07:05 AM on 30 April 2019Rebellious Times
This is a really good data based article. Its a bit ominous that almost all the critical comments are characteristic of conservatives, showing just how politicised the whole issue has become, although one suspects the people posting criticial comments are largely working for conservative special interest groups or are disgruntled individuals so perhaps not representative of the great silent majority of conservatives. And its good that extinction rebellion have steered clear of the blame game, and politicising the issue because in democracies we simply have no choice but to try to build political consensus and persuade people.
The china syndrome is of course a weak argument and can be resolved with international agreements getting everyone to pull together. Sadly the dissenters then complain about so called loss of sovereignty. The climate issue has become so deeply frustrating. The denialists will indeed find themselves on the wrong side of history, but probably won't care.
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