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Comments 15501 to 15550:
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NorrisM at 10:59 AM on 27 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
michael sweet @ 153
I have to say that what troubles me most about what is happening with climate change is the increasing acidification of our oceans and the potential loss of our coral and the implications this has for our oceans and the living organisms in it. Maybe this is how you get to "conservatives".
There is no way to fix this by spending money later. I personally do not see the nation states of this world coming together. If they cannot even clean up the plastic in the oceans, then what hope is there for the coral? I am not very conversant on this. Is there a thread on this website which deals with the loss of coral and ocean acidification?
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nigelj at 10:54 AM on 27 February 2018Impact of climate change on health is ‘the major threat of 21st century’
What I'm saying is humanity is not going to be able to simply "adapt" our way out of climate change with technology as Riduna seems to be saying, and so we better cut emissions. Technology will of course help.
I'm a big technology fan, but a world of millions of robots is probably a fantasy because there are going to be too many shortages of critical metals. I'm very sure humanity will be forced to chart a rather more careful path, with technology moving more towards the essential things even in rich market economy countries.
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NorrisM at 10:51 AM on 27 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
michael sweet @ 153
"It will be much cheaper to take action to reduce CO 2now than to try to repair the damage in the future."
Here is the rub.
My understanding is that the IPCC Fifth Assessment has very little in it on actual numbers making any such comparisons for very obvious reasons. You have criticized me for not having any "peer reviewed studies" for various common sense comments I have made. Is this your "common sense" view or can you provide me with some study that has concluded this? I am not criticizing you if you do not have a peer reviewed study but just making a point about asking for "peer reviewed statements" for any comments or questions posed on this website.
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nigelj at 10:43 AM on 27 February 2018Impact of climate change on health is ‘the major threat of 21st century’
Riduna "It is not science fiction to believe, indeed expect, that the future of farming is likely to be linked to the use of electrically driven, computer controlled equipment such as those shown in this video."
Yes definitely in Australia and similar countries if they want, (NZ also has some pretty smart farmers) but if you think this can be scaled up globally in an idealistic way, I think you are mistaken. Do some reading on resource scarcity and population growth. Put it this way, things are going to have to change in certain respects. However point taken.
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NorrisM at 10:40 AM on 27 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
michael sweet @ 153
Here is a qualification stated in the Climate Central Study you quote: "The ranges depend on the ultimate sensitivity of sea level to warming."
I could not find any reference to what assumed sea level rise by 2100 is used in the study. Do you know? If you are quoting these figures I assume you have access to the New York Times more detailed information.
You are placing a lot of emphasis on the Nerem 2018 paper. I have not finished reading the information from the US Climate Change Report or the other website but my understanding from what I have read so far that Nerem has basically reinterpreted the data from the first 6 years of TOPAZ and then made some assumptions about what would have happened to sea levels if Mt Pitulabo would not have erupted in 1991. From my understanding the first 6 years of TOPAZ is so problematic that it should simply be discarded.
My suggestion is that when I get through this reading material, I will post any comments I have on the sea level rise thread but address the post to you.
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Riduna at 10:28 AM on 27 February 2018Impact of climate change on health is ‘the major threat of 21st century’
nigelj & Red Barron
Australia is well known for its inventiveness and the success of its inventions and its farmers are, as in many other parts of the world, ‘conservative’. However they are also smart and quick to recognise how mechanisation can improve their productivity and profitability. Australian scientists are showing them how this can be done.
It is not science fiction to believe, indeed expect, that the future of farming is likely to be linked to the use of electrically driven, computer controlled equipment such as those shown in this video.
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nigelj at 08:39 AM on 27 February 2018Impact of climate change on health is ‘the major threat of 21st century’
"Climate scientist Jim Salinger: a letter to my grandchildren"
A New Zealand climate scientist talking about the impacts of climate change recently, and as projected, including on human health.
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12002170
Apologies for spamming a little with several comments, but the Salinger article just appeared and seemed relevant.
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michael sweet at 08:00 AM on 27 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
John Hartz,
From the UCS paper:
"Using the Army Corps of Engineers scenario and tide gauge
data from Virginia Key, UCS analysis projects that tidal flooding
is likely to affect areas in Miami, Miami Beach, Coral
Gables, and other nearby cities around 80 times per year
by 2030 (compared to roughly six per year currently) and
more than 380 times per year by 2045. [!!] In 2045, given normal
variations in the tides, while some days would be flood-free,
many days would see one or even two flood events—one
with each high tide." my emphasisAt some point insurance (currently provided by the government) will not be extended any more to houses that flood many times per year. Once that happens banks will not loan mortgages and the property values will collapse. Since this paper projects 80 floods per year in only 13 years (!!!) one wonders how long it will be before banks catch on.
It states that 20% of Miami-Dade county is within 12 inches of sea level. 15 inches of sea level rise is expected by 2050. A big hurricane (they just dodged one last summer) will swamp the city.
OMG!
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scaddenp at 07:11 AM on 27 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
"This discussion began with your claim that it might be good for the economy that people have a lot of work to do to adapt to climate change."
NorrisM is really desparate for reasons to do nothing. Wild suppositions in preference to the literature that actually crunches the numbers.
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nigelj at 06:11 AM on 27 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #8
"What would happen if we burned through all of the fossil-fuel resources known to exist? In a paper published today in the journal Science Advances, a quartet of German, American, and British researchers take on this question. The answer, not surprisingly, is grim. If mankind managed to combust the world’s known conventional deposits of coal, gas, and oil, and then went on to consume all of its “unconventional” ones, like tar-sands oil and shale gas, the result would be emissions on the order of ten trillion tons of carbon. Average global temperatures would soar, and the world would remain steamy for millennia. After ten thousand years, the planet would still be something like fourteen degrees Fahrenheit hotter than it is today. All of the world’s mountain glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet would melt away; Antarctica, too, would eventually become pretty much ice free. Sea levels would rise by hundreds of feet."
www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/if-we-burned-all-the-fossil-fuel-in-the-world
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nigelj at 05:53 AM on 27 February 2018Impact of climate change on health is ‘the major threat of 21st century’
There's another problem with things like AI automated farming and heavy duty robotics. The world probably doesn't have enough mineral resources left to scale these up in every country in the world. We will struggle just to do basic products and renewable energy etcetera.
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RedBaron at 05:40 AM on 27 February 2018Impact of climate change on health is ‘the major threat of 21st century’
@ riduna,
Sory to burst your bubble but your vision of the future of agriculture can not even begin to exist, because long before it is even fully developed, it crashes.
Only 60 Years of Farming Left If Soil Degradation Continues
Furthermore, it is only cheaper, more efficient, and higher yielding than currently extremely inefficient, expensive, low yielding, low profit industrial "green revolution" agriculture. It doesn't even approach sustainability, nor even touch far more modern regenerative holistic approaches on any of those most important catagories.
The real trend that has a chance at least of sustainability?
"Organic systems and the practices that make them effective are being picked up more and more by conventional agriculture and will become the foundation for future farming systems." - Dr. Charles Benbrook
But probably the most important point of all, your vision cooks the ecosystems that support agriculture even worse! They are a net carbon emissions source rather than a net sink as properly done agriculture.
"The first duty of the agriculturalist must always be to understand that he is part of nature and can not escape from his environment." - Sir Albert Howard
Ignore that little bit of wisdom at your own peril.
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nigelj at 05:40 AM on 27 February 2018Impact of climate change on health is ‘the major threat of 21st century’
The insidious things about the climate issue is its relationship to global inequality. Vox has an article comparing heatwaves against the effects of reduced cold periods. On balance problems of heatwaves appear greater, however another point is heatwaves are going to be most deadly in tropical and sub tropical countries which tend to be poor countries (India, much of Africa etc) so cant afford technology fixes. Of course there are exceptions like Australia that are high income.
India is unlikely to have much in the way of AI automated farming for a long time, because it lacks the financial resources. The same problem applies to increased diseases in that they seem more of a problem in tropical climates and poor countries. Denge fever is unlikely to affect Europe unless it warms drastically is it? So climate change is exacerbating global inequality.
Of course various aspects of climate change are an absolute danger to wealthy countries, and drain their resources as well. This means they will be even less willing to help poor countries making the inequality / poverty problem even worse still, in a sort of feedback effect.
www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/17/16851398/cold-snap-heat-wave-deaths-human-health
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sparker at 05:30 AM on 27 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #8
Gingerbaker - sea level will not necessarily stop rising in 300 years; what the study shows is that the greenhouse gas emissions we project to have occurred by the year 2100, even under the most optimistic scenarios, commit us to rising sea levels through the year 2300. The year 2300 is essentially arbitrary. Once we curtail anthropogenic emissions, the planet will eventually return to steady state, but some of the processes involved operate on timescales of thousands of years so it will take a while. Extra heat in the Earth system in 2300 will still go partially into melting ice, partially into warming the oceans, partially into warming the land and atmosphere, so there will still be melting and thermal expansion going on. The study also shows that the sooner we act to curtail our emissions, the less sea level rise we commit ourselves to by 2300 to a substantial degree - the study indicates that every 5 years we delay peaking our emissions commits us to a further 20cm sea level rise by 2300, and that right now we're looking at about a meter rise by 2300 if we sustain zero net greenhouse gas emissions until then, which is a really tough goal to hit. The study also shows that even if we manage to curtail emissions so as to hit our 2C warming cap, depending on our emissions pathways there's still a chance that sea level rise in 2300 could be much greater than a meter - up to 4+ meters under some scenarios.
The ice sheets will not be gone by 2300 but meltwater from them will certainly be a large contributing factor to sea level rise. If the ice sheets did somehow manage to completely melt, we'd be looking at nearly 70 meters of sea level rise from the added water alone, discounting thermal expansion.
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John Hartz at 05:19 AM on 27 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
For details about the impacts of sea level rise in Miami, check out this post by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS):
Tidal Flooding and Sea Level Rise in Miami-Dade County, Florida (2016)
The above article provides context for the 10-page fact sheet, Encroaching Tides in Miami-Dade County, Florida prepared by the UCS.
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Riduna at 03:41 AM on 27 February 2018Impact of climate change on health is ‘the major threat of 21st century’
The human response is not to curb greenhouse gas emissions but to automate. Expect to see AI-automation occurring most rapidly where exposure to heat and health risk are probably the highest – farming.
In Australia, research, development and demonstration of automated machinery able to till, plant, tend and harvest crops without human intervention is gaining momentum. Guided by GPS and optical sensors, machines are being developed which have the capacity to prepare the soil and where appropriate add fertilizer before planting seed or young plants at pre-determined depth and spacing over a given area. Other machines already exist which can recognise and eliminate weeds and others have been designed to harvest crops.
Eventually, multipurpose machinery, electrically driven and computer controlled will be deployed to undertake all agricultural activity where human labour was once deemed essential. Its cheaper, more efficient and doesn’t need time off when it gets too hot and humid.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:58 AM on 27 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
I encourage everyone to rigorously differentiate the people who are doing something when discussing the actions related to climate change impacts.
Regarding sea level rise. The sub-set of current day humanity desiring prolonged or increased burning of fossil fuels are creating harm plus high risks of more harm that others, particularly future generations, will have to suffer from and attempt to deal with. And a sub-set of the previous generations can be included in the group that knowingly pursue(d) more Private Interest benefit in ways that do harm to others (do harm to the Public Interest).
It is not helpful to discuss things as a generic totality of human with terms like We. The current generation of humanity is a separate group from future generations. This is not a matter of what We are doing to Us. What a current generation does 'affects Others in the future'. It is Us and Them. And the future Them do not really get any benefit from the fossil fuels burning by Us, regardless of the silly economic assessments that pretend that perceived wealth/value today will always increase into the future. Only the value connected to completely sustainable activities can be expected to continue into the future, and it can only grow into more future wealth if a better truly sustainable way of doing things is developed to supersede it.
More precisely the delay or lack of action to reduce the future rapid global warming climate change impacts that Others will have to deal with is 'a portion of the current population doing harm to All Others, including future generations'. And even more explicitly it is harm that is substantially being done by a portion of the wealthiest among the current day population who want to get away with benefiting more from the burning of fossil fuels to be perceived to be Winners relative to all others'.
More correctly presenting who is doing what should help increase the number of people who will understand and support the required corrective actions to advance humanity to a sustainable better future.
I am pretty sure that the trouble-making few among the wealthiest 'understand this this way' and are very highly motivated to delay the development of that increment of improved awareness and understanding in the general population.
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michael sweet at 22:29 PM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
Norrism:
In commment 152 you say "My understanding is that the IPCC 1 m was the median case not the "best case" suggesting you claimed sea level would rise 1 meter. In comment 137 you say "At the present rate of sea level rise of ballpark 3.5 mm/yr by 2100 this represents about 11 inches of sea level rise." Your claim of 11 inches of sea level rise by 2100 is false. Nerem's estimate of a minimum of 0.68 meters with at least 8 feet as an amount plannners should plan for. You consistantly minimize the danger we must plan for.
This discussion began with your claim that it might be good for the economy that people have a lot of work to do to adapt to climate change. I asked where you were going to put hundreds of millions of refugees from sea level rise as an example of how bad it might be. This Climate Central study estimates as many as 650 million sea level refugees by 2100. More would come after that. Where do you think Canada can put several million refugees?
We have not begun to discuss negative affects on agriculture (like the desertification of Texas, California and large areas of Africa among other areas) or the extinction of most coral species. Need I expand this list further? Of course jobs might be created building new water systems and who wants to go fishing anyway.
You do not want to face the facts of the matter. AGW is already bad for the economy. It will be much cheaper to take action to reduce CO 2now than to try to repair the damage in the future.
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NorrisM at 14:12 PM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
michael sweet @ 149
Thanks for the reference. That was a bit lazy on my part. I will read the chapter on sea level rise.
Although everyone knows what is meant by the term "porous", technically the proper term is "permeable". Swiss cheese is porous but you need permeability as in a sponge (interconnectivity) for fluids to move through rock. Learned this a long time ago being corrected by geologists.
My understanding is that the IPCC 1 m was the median case not the "best case".
I have a little more reading to do on sea level rise, both the Climate Science Report as well as some other sea level discussion recently published on another website.
I think Florida will be instructive as to how we deal with sea level rise in developed countries. My guess is that at some point real estate prices will start to decline, there will be less new development and people will gradually over the next 50 years move out of south Florida. The parents will stay but the children will live elsewhere, somewhat similar to what has happened in rural areas of the US and Canada. There will be no mass migration but rather a gradual reduction in the population and the importance of Florida.
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nigelj at 12:56 PM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #8
"Breitbart repeats blogger’s unsupported claim that NOAA manipulates data to exaggerate warming."
Is this political tribalism at work, or just gross ignorance?
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Bob Loblaw at 12:18 PM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
NorrisM:
The parent web page of the detailed Miami map I linked to is:
http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/
It took me a few minutes to get this map of New York City. (Mostly because the web page seems to want to rotate through different options faster than you can choose them.)
Typing "Los Angeles" in the box in the upper right corner of the New York (or Miami) map and then zooming and moving a bit rapidly gets me to this map.
It's taking me more time to type this comment than it took to get those maps.
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NorrisM at 11:54 AM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
Bob Loblaw @ 147
I suspect the red on the NASA map is Miami Beach. I find the map you referenced difficult to work with. I would have thought NASA would have had a much more comprehensive "climate time machine" for all parts of the world. Cannot even see New York or Los Angeles.
I do not have a lot of sympathy for Florida. There is a certain amount of "caveat emptor" that does not apply to countries like Bangladesh. And here Florida, the most vulnerable state in the US to climate change passes its electoral college seats to Trump who calls climate change a hoax. Is this a bit of "head in the Florida sand"?
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michael sweet at 09:38 AM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
Norrism"
Googleing "US climate change report" gave me Climate Science Special Report 2017 as the third hit. The 5th paragraph of the executive summary states:
"Global average sea levels are expected to continue to rise—by at least several inches in the next 15 years and by 1–4 feet by 2100. A rise of as much as 8 feet by 2100 cannot be ruled out." there is a chapter on sea level rise.
Please note that this is a substantial increase from the National Climate Assessment 2013 which gave a maximum of 6.6 feet.
The Nerem paper is too recent to be considered in any summary report. When the Nerem paper is taken into consideration the maximum (and the expected) will have to be increased again. There have been several recent papers on Antarctic ice starting to collapse. That will be added on also. This is par for the course, they always increase sea level rise every time they write a report. Hansen's suggestion of 16 feet of rise by 2100 as posssible is looking more likely all the time.
Sea level declined slightly from 1500 to 1850 then started to rise as AGW took effect. (details in the reports cited above)
You only consider the best case. To properly plan for the future you have to plan for the worst case. "plan for the worst and hope for the best". The problem with planning for the absolute best possible, like you do, is that if it doesn't work out than you are in big trouble. If you plan for the worst you can adapt easily to better conditions.
Look carefully at the NASA map. Often satalite data is used which measures to the top of buildings and the top of trees. That is not very useful and it appears to me that is what NASA has done. The Climate Central map that Bob Ladlaw linked up thread is more accurate (I believe it has been peer reviewed). Both NASA and Climate Central only consider a home flooded when it is permanently under water. In the real case, people have to have several feet of difference between their house and mean higher high water. That means they substantially underestimate the number of people flooded by a certain amount of sea level rise.
South Florida cannot be defended because the rock is porous. They have not realized that they will all have to move when the sea rises a few more feet. They will have no water and it will be clear they will be flooded in the long run. What will be done with the nuclear reactor at Turkey Point that is already on a low lying island island?
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:34 AM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
NorrisM,
To reinforce the understanding of my previous comment about the future perception of unacceptability of a portion of current day humanity enjoying the creation of future consequences others will have to deal with, I offer the following current day perception regarding the lack of action through the past several decades.
It can be justifiably claimed that the current generation of humanity faces a larger and 'more urgent to act on' challenge to reduce the total accumulated climate change impacts due to the 'attempts by already more fortunate humans to continue to personally benefit from burning of fossil fuels', as well as having to make amends for the already identified harmful consequences being experienced by people who did not significantly sustainably benefit from the creation of the challenges they face.
Current day people understanding that would be justified in taking actions against the Private Interest of all of the more fortunate people who, since 1987 (and likely earlier) when it became undeniable that their continued attempts to benefit that way were unacceptable, have continued to try to get away with understandably unacceptable behaviour rather than change their minds and their ways. And those justified actions would include stripping some of those "Big Winners" of most of their wealth (Just like cheating athletes get their medals removed at later dates).
The likely result of increased understanding of what is going on includes the end of the belief that popularity and profitability are decent ways of determining acceptability. The improved understanding would include the knowledge that everyone freer to believe what they want and do as they please will actually delay or reduce the chances of developing sustainable improvements for humanity. A lot of horrible harmful things have developed and been prolonged in the games of popularity and profitability.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:15 AM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
NorrisM @ 144:
OK. Now I can see what you see on the NASA map. At least, I think I see what you see.
What I see is a map of the SE US, from Texas to Florida and points north along the Atlantic seaboard. A map that simply does not have sufficient detail around Miami to show the areas that will flood that are shown in the map I link to in #138. I do see a bit of red near Miami on the NASA map.
If the NASA map were the first one I was to see, I'd go looking for another map with better resolution and detail around Miami. I"d be curious what those few pixels or red represented. I am guessing that you saw what you wanted to see (lots of white), and stopped.
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nigelj at 05:11 AM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #8
One third of the worlds food is wasted, just thrown out.
www.businessinsider.com/food-world-wastes-most-2016-10/?r=AU&IR=T
However I suggest changing this behaviour will be difficult, especially in affluent societies. So any climate impacts on crop productivity etcetera will still be huge concerns.
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Gingerbaker at 04:42 AM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #8
Why only 300 years? Will the ice sheets be gone by then? Will thermal expansion stop by then?
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:12 AM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
NorrisM,
You also seem to believe it is acceptable for people in the future to have to 'adapt or mitigate'. That misunderstanding needs to be corrected. Correcting that misunderstanding will make it clear that many among the most fortunate today 'owe others, specially the future generations' what it takes to correct the incorrect things that have developed.
'Future adaptation' is not a 'fair or legitimate' option. Globally correcting that misunderstanding will change everything - for the better (except for those who want to maintain undeserved developed perceptions of personal prosperity or opportunity).
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NorrisM at 03:28 AM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
OPOF @ 143
Thanks for this summary of the continuing changes that we will be required to address with climate change. They obviously will be things that must and will be addressed as the costs of operating our society. When these adaptation costs become too burdensome for the public then you will see the outcry that will get the public behind more mitigation measures. I just see at the present time a different mix of adaptation and mitigation than many others on this website.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:19 AM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #8
jef,
I agree. The increased uncertainty regarding the potential upcoming 'regional growing season weather' due to the rapid rate of change of global climate conditions makes it harder for farmers to choose appropriate crops to plant.
And the increased probability of regional weather events that damage crops, like the recent flooding of fields in India by massive rain events, and to the food production challenge.
Of course the massive food producing region in Bangladesh is seriously threatened by sea level rise combined with increased amounts of rain in rain events.
However, a related food production problem continues to be the inequity of distribution of produced food to the global (and regional) population. Even without the new challenges of global warming climate change the 'more than adequate global (and regional) production of food' has failed to result in adequate nutrition for every human.
Solving those problems today will help future generations sustainably live better. All that is needed is for the most fortunate today to be willing to change their minds and charitably help advance all of humanity to a sustainable better future.
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NorrisM at 03:19 AM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
Bob Loblaw @ 138 and michael sweet @ 40
Here is the NASA interactive graphic that shows Miami is still around with 6 feet of sea level rise:
climate.nasa.gov/interactives/climate-time-machine
I think that Miami will be a fascinating analysis of the dynamics of American politics when it comes to solving the issues of sea level rise. Who will pay the bill? The Miami Herald article referenced by the Moderator suggests that they will be looking for federal money on the grounds that their adaptations will somehow assist other areas of the country. I am not sure that the rest of the country will so sympathetic to assisting the wealthy who have developed this land full-well knowing that it would be vulnerable to rising sea levels. How long have sea levels been rising? From what I understand a couple of hundred years.
I fully understand the issues with the porous rock that underlays Miami. Again, how long has this been known?
New Orleans is another fascinating case where a lot of the sea level rise has been caused by the subsidence in the land mass from drainage. Again, who will foot the bill?
I acknowledge michael sweet's correction that my calculation was one of future sea level rise from 2018 to 2100 whereas the IPCC prediction of 1m goes back to ballpark 1870 (I believe). This was a mistake on my part because I forgot that the IPCC prediction related to a different period. It was not an intentional misrepresentation.
My mistake indicates the confusion that I suspect there is with the public when 1m of sea level rise (best guess) is predicted by 2100.
What the public wants to focus on is the "here and now". From where we are today, what can we expect by 2100? It is too sophisticated to talk to the public about 1 m since 1870 unless the point is made at the same time that we have already seen 9 inches of the predicted 39 inches.
As for the recent Nerem paper, I was aware of it but my understanding is that it is one paper and it certainly is not the considered view of the IPCC at this time. I am not sure if it was referenced by the recent US Climate Change Report. Secondly, the predicted acceleration of the sea levels by the climae models was some time in the future.
But if Nerem is correct then this certainly is information that has to be taken into account.
michael sweet, I would very much appreciate it if you could again provide me with the link to where the US Climate Change Report references predicted sea level changes. Does it specifically accept the Nerem paper? I thought the Nerem paper would have come out too late to be considered.
Moderator: Again it is difficult to discuss issues in a vacuum without crossing into other threads where these things are discussed. Perhaps ms could reply to me on the sea level change thread with a cross reference to this thread.
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jef12506 at 02:46 AM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #8
Sea level rise has obvious consequences and destructive storm surges will be devastating for many in the not too distant future.
What will be way more destructive and will happen sooner than most understand is the destruction of our ability to produce enough food to support the population. It is happening right now but for now where there is destruction in one region there has been production in another. We can not rely on such good luck for much longer. -
One Planet Only Forever at 02:42 AM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
NorrisM,
To help you better understand how to 'correctly' evaluate potential impacts of sea level rise I offer the following 'increment' of better understanding. To determine the region where the ground surface is affected you need to compare ground elevation to:
- Mean Sea Level
- + The potential rise of sea level due to global warming
- + The increase at High Tide
- + The maximum potential storm surge including any potential increase due to global warming climate change
- + Wave action which is potentially increased by global warming climate change. Note that the impact of waves is the added height of the wave tops plus the inland velocity moving the water to even higher ground surface levels further inland.
- + inland surface runoff occurring during the same event which is undeniably increased by global warming climate change - the Houston event proved that.
- The identification of any below ground human creations like parking basements, that would be compromised because they are lower than the ground water level increases.
A related 'increment' of understanding is that the 'building today' of the sustainable fix that will survive far into the future would include the complete demolition of the currently built items that would potentially be within the range of increase water encroachment, be impacted in the future, with the area they had been built in reclaimed to the pre-development natural conditions.
Note that attempting to accomplish something by building walls is a fool's game. A wall needs to be maintained to survive into the distant future. And if the wall becomes understood to be inadequate, if the original attempts to conservatively determine what would be required are incorrect, it can be almost impossible to practically improve the wall. That imposition of a future cost would be unacceptable, so the initial wall would need to be a massive feature, able to endure thousands of years into the future.
And a further increment is that sea level rise is only one of the many climate change impacts that today's 'most fortunate who got their fortune from the global burning of fossil fuels' have to address by revising/strengthening of already built items. Other actions required by Today's most fortunate beneficiaries of the entire history of burning of fossil fuels include:
- Increased snow weight on all buildings in regions that may have snow, including regions that have an increased potential for snow events due to global warming climate change.
- Stronger maximum wind speeds everywhere.
- Upgrade all drainage systems for increased peak rain intensities, especially dam spillway features (to avoid the future near disaster as almost occurred in California in 2017).
- Upgrade all surface runoff reservoirs to hold increased total runoff from a multi-day rain event combined with snow melt.
And the next increment of understanding is Today's 'most fortunate who got their fortune from the global burning of fossil fuels' have to pay to do the upgrading/strengthening changing everywhere on the planet, including being the ones to pay for impacted regions where the people did not gain significant benefit from the burning of fossil fuels, did not benefit from the creation of the problem that has to be corrected for.
And what I have mentioned is only part of what has to be required to be done by today's most fortunate beneficiaries of the global burning of fossil fuels to be 'fair to those who do/did not benefit as much from the activity', especially to be fair to the future generations who get no benefit, just the burden of dealing with the impacts.
Hope that helps you become a Better Understander.
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John Hartz at 01:07 AM on 26 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
Speaking of sea level rise in Miami...
Sea-level rise is a regional threat. It will need a regional game plan to fight it by Harvey Ruvin, Miami Herald, Feb 13, 2018
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michael sweet at 20:13 PM on 25 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
Moderator,
Norrism has produced no data to support his wild claims about sea level or "Maybe adaptation is not such a bad thing". We have only his unsupported word. On sea level he ignores the data he has been given and makes up absurd claims. We had a long discussion about "harming the economy" where he produced nothing beyond his unsupported word. He dismissed the Stern report with he thought he had heard someone criticize it but produced nothing in writing. He ignores questions that he doesn't like.
Norrism should be required to support his wild claims just like everyone else. It is very time consuming to find peer reviewed data to show his claims are false and then he denies the data. He should have to answer the questions he faces. It is impossible to debate smoke.
Moderator Response:[DB] Agreed.
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michael sweet at 19:54 PM on 25 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
Norrism:
The "distance" between us is caused by you always minimizing the dangter. I provided a link upthread for you that estimated as much as 8 feet of sea level rise by 2100 from the US Climate Change report released by the Trump administration. Since recent peer reviewed studies linked above have shown that sea level is accelerating a minimum of 0.68 meters is expected. As Bob Ladlaw says, the physics indicates that much more is projected. Where did you get 11 inches? Since we have already seen 9 inches and at 3.4 mm/yr 12 more inches is expected by 2100 even your minimum estimate is 21 inches. Your numbers are deliberately incorrect.
Looking at Bob's map from Climate Central, at only 6 feet (two feet less than what might occur) most of Miami is under water. Looking a little north I seee all of Fort Lauderdale is underwater and Miami is actually an island. Since they get all their water from wells located at 3 feet above sea level (the old sea level, now it is 2 feet 3 inches above sea level) their water will all be gone. They already have salt intrusion problems.
In addition, the Climate Central maps only show land that is submerged at mean higher high water. That means homes that are at 6.5 feeet are flooded several times a month by spring tides, hardly livable. They will need a bridge to get past Fort Lauderdale when they ship in food.
If you simply deny all the problems caused by AGW it is easy to claim it is not too bad. You have beeen provided with the data. You are just not able to remember the bad things.
You have not given me a descritpion of where you are going to put 100,000,000 climate refugees. Canada will have to take at least several million. Where in Canada do you propose to put several million people from Bangladesh?
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nigelj at 15:47 PM on 25 February 2018“How is That Conservative?” Former Climate Denier now Backs Action
This interview is excellent:
"We talk to David Roberts from Vox about the intractability of conservatives on climate change and whether polarization is something to be avoided or embraced."
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:21 PM on 25 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
NorrisM,
All of your arguing is attempts to excuse unacceptable developed desires to get away with creating a bigger problem - unless you admit that people today have to conservatively correct things so that the actions of the current generation will almost certainly develop a sustainable better future for humanity.
I am an Engineer. I apply developed, but still uncertain, understanding to 'safely design things that will hopefuly last into the future'. So do all other responsible engineers.
The responsible actions to address the uncertain creation of sea level rise would be for the people today benefiting from creating the uncertain future problem to have to build solutions that are likely to survive long into the future (not leave it to future generations to try to solve).
And to be safe, structural designs are based on a 98% probability of performing adequately in the future. That would mean evaluating the range of possible sea level rise and associated storm event surges to determine the level that only has a 2% chance of being exceeded in the future. And that evaluation would have to include the uncertainty regarding how much irresponsible action will occur, how bad it could get, conservatively.
So, less aggressive action today to reduce the future impacts would require more expenditure today to correct for the possible worst future that is being created.
Said it before. Will say it again. Less action taken earlier to correct a problem likely develops a larger future problem requiring more dramatic corrective action.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:54 PM on 25 February 2018“How is That Conservative?” Former Climate Denier now Backs Action
nigelj@8,
I agree. A lot of education is required regarding what actions are helpful/acceptable. And it must continue in every future generation.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals, or any of the many other presentations of the same set of objectives grouped into different categories, are a very good set of measures of acceptable actions.
If those Good/Helpful Goals are substantially met there would be a dramatic reduction of the probability of development of events like the Vietnam War where bizarre declarations of what is required for the future of humanity get made-up and become temporarily regionally considered to be 'justified'.
The US Military assessment that minimizing climate change impacts is an important way to improve the 'National Security of the USA and its International Interests' probably similarly applies to the achievement of many, if not all, of the SDGs.
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Bob Loblaw at 14:00 PM on 25 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
NorrisM:
Miami? Completely there, with 6 feet of sea level rise?
That's not what I see on this map. At least, not if you include MIami Beach, Key Biscayne, and close to the shore where much expensive real estate is located. Or large areas inland of Miami. What NASA site did you use? I didn't find one in the first few pages of a google search.
And please don't bring back that whole linear extrapolation of current rates as if accelerated sea level rise in the future is unrealistic. It is not "an assumption", it is a projection made by actually looking at the physics of climate change and glacier melt, and how it affects sea level. You know: that "science" stuff.
A linear extrapolation only works if your "what if?" is "what if the experts that study this have got it all wrong?"
Dikes don't help in MIami: the "rock" is Swiss cheese and water will just percolate under it. Miami is already having problems and spending money:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise
The rest of your post is basically a "technology will save us with magic money" argument. Talk about wild exaggerations and assumptions.
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NorrisM at 11:50 AM on 25 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
michael sweet @ 134 and Bob Loblaw @ 135
I just went on the NASA website to check out Miami. It is completly there with 6 feet of sea level rise. At the present rate of sea level rise of ballpark 3.5 mm/yr by 2100 this represents about 11 inches of sea level rise. So once again we are back to "what if"s to get to some significant impacts (I am not going to define "significant").
So a lot of the "distance" between us is our lack of ability to see into the future and our disagreeing beliefs on what will happen based upon those differing views. Right now, the IPCC is somewhere around 1m. by 2100. I do not have the ranges at my fingertips but I do believe these predictions are based upon assumptions of accelerating sea levels which are predicted sometime in the future.
Paul Ehrlich did not help things with his wild predictions made in the 1970's and 1980's. So along with the problems of the climate models not being able to accurately represent our actual climate (and therefore accurately predict the future), we do have a bit of the problem that "we have been here before" with dire predictions that simply did not come true.
I see climate change as a concern but I also see a host of other problems with our world that could make all this worry about 2100 a little academic (accidental nuclear destruction, AI, developments in genetic engineering) when there is absolutely no one who can look into the future 80 years from now and tell us where sea levels will be.
So we plod along doing the best we can (knowing that we live in democracies that have a lot of priorities to deal with) but I do not think there is a chance in the world that millions of refugees will be knocking at the doors (or landing on the shores) of the US and Canada in 2100 or sooner. Wild exaggerations like this are not helpful. First of all, these nations will take steps to protect their people by spending funds to build dikes to protect large areas of the land if these sea levels continue to rise at accelerating levels (probably with foreign aid). Secondly, maybe at some point we actually will become more proactive at reducing the world population long before then by methods of birth control and other family planning incentives so that we do not have rampant poverty in many places of the world.
I think the cartoon at the top of this blog misses the point that this is a very long process and if it becomes more and more of a problem then the world will deal with it. You may say it will be too late but everything that I read suggests that it is already too late if the dire predictions do come to pass. My understanding is that even a frog would jump out of a slowly heating pot of water. Hopefully, we are a little smarter than frogs.
Moderator Response:[DB] As others have already noted, your claims about SLR and Miami are without evidence and merit. As for "rates" of global SLR, recent research demonstrates that the rates of global SLR are now accelerating and are thus greater-than-linear already:
"Global sea level rise is not cruising along at a steady 3 mm per year, it's accelerating a little every year, like a driver merging onto a highway, according to a powerful new assessment led by CIRES Fellow Steve Nerem. He and his colleagues harnessed 25 years of satellite data to calculate that the rate is increasing by about 0.08 mm/year every year—which could mean an annual rate of sea level rise of 10 mm/year, or even more, by 2100."
"This acceleration, driven mainly by accelerated melting in Greenland and Antarctica, has the potential to double the total sea level rise by 2100 as compared to projections that assume a constant rate—to more than 60 cm instead of about 30." said Nerem, who is also a professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. "And this is almost certainly a conservative estimate," he added. "Our extrapolation assumes that sea level continues to change in the future as it has over the last 25 years. Given the large changes we are seeing in the ice sheets today, that's not likely."Per Nerem et al 2018:
"the observed acceleration will more than double the amount of sea-level rise by 2100 compared with the current rate of sea-level rise continuing unchanged. This projection of future sea-level rise is based only on the satellite-observed changes over the last 25 y, assuming that sea level changes similarly in the future. If sea level begins changing more rapidly, for example due to rapid changes in ice sheet dynamics, then this simple extrapolation will likely represent a conservative lower bound on future sea-level change."
Tamino weighs in with more.
If you wish to pursue a discussion on SLR and how it impacts global port cities like Miami and others worldwide, this thread is a good place for that.
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 off-topic posts, intentionally misleading comments, ignore when others have demonstrated you to be wrong (sloganeering) or simply make things up. 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, as no further warnings shall be given.
Sloganeering and off-topic snipped.
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Riduna at 11:38 AM on 25 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #8
Sea level rise is serious and damaging by itself but made infinately worse by storm surges - and there are likely to be some very destructive storm surges in the latter part of this century, particularly if there is an increase imn the polar-tropical thermal gradient.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:51 AM on 25 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #8
nigelj,
I agree with your comment.
My only comment is to encourage you to say "its a slow process, we future generations will adapt, buildings get rebuilt anyway".
It is important to be clear that Others will be suffering the consequences of the way a portion of the current day population pursue personal benefit.
This ties into the ethics/acceptability of Private Interests. Everyone's actions are their Private Interest. What is important that they ethically limit their Private Interest pursuits to actions that do not cause any harm or increased risk of harm to Others - As The Other's See It.
And the future genrations are the largest pool of Others. And as bluntly stated in the 1987 UN Report "Our Common Future" many people do not properly consider the future generation's perspective because none of the future genrations can vote, sue, or otherwise get even.
Climate science has unintentionally exposed the insideous ways that competition to Win Private Interest pursuits leads many people to behave/argue less ethically (less acceptably).
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nigelj at 08:06 AM on 25 February 2018“How is That Conservative?” Former Climate Denier now Backs Action
Bob Loblaw, Altemeyers study sounds very plausible. These very excessively obedient people remind me of children that have never fully grown up.
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Bob Loblaw at 07:40 AM on 25 February 2018“How is That Conservative?” Former Climate Denier now Backs Action
Nigelj:
In "The Authoritarians",a lot of Bob Altemeyer's study looks at what he calls "authoritarian followers" - the people that blindly follow authoritarian leaders. He says the worst combination is a large group of authoritarian followers following a "social dominator" who will say anything to gain/keep power. He's developed a series of questions that provide what he calls a Right Wing Authoritarianism scale (RWA). Be very, very afraid of someone who is both a high RWA and a high social dominator.
Not that we have any place like that currently. Not at all. Can't imagine it.
I will follow up your Wikipedia suggestion on Moral Foundations Theory.
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nigelj at 07:16 AM on 25 February 2018“How is That Conservative?” Former Climate Denier now Backs Action
A perfect example of authoritarianism and obedience.
"The invasion of the body snatchers is complete. Donald Trump has taken over the conservative movement and bent it to his will."
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/24/cpac-trump-conservatives-republicans
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nigelj at 07:09 AM on 25 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #8
The threat of sea level rise is very serious and insidious, ihho. However some people out there probaly rationalise the issue by saying to themselves "its a slow process, we will adapt, buildings get rebuilt anyway".
It may be worth doing an article explaining why this a simplistic and deluded view in numerous ways. It could amass all the relevant research links.
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nigelj at 06:19 AM on 25 February 2018“How is That Conservative?” Former Climate Denier now Backs Action
Taminos material was interesting. J Bell says global warming causes both droughts and floods, heat and cold, so is ridiculous nonsense. Various people gave very good, if predictable rebuttals.
What intrigues me is whether Bell is truly sceptical, or knows perfectly well that a warming world could cause seemingly contradictory responses, and has simply trawled through the global warming issue to find anything that might confuse people who aren't very bright, or are easily lead because their politics makes them sceptics. Either way, it leaves us little option but to waste time with rebuttals.
Regarding the authoritarian personality. Moral foundations theory on wikipedia has some interesting and credible information as well.
Blind obedience is a terrible, dangerous thing and very authoritarian people are difficult for many of us to live with, yet others actually seem attracted to these personalities.
I think the origins of authoritarianism are simply that its a basic parenting skill. I think it just becomes very excessive in some people, possibly because it reinforces conservative values, or they were over disciplined as children, so became very authoritarian themselves. Left and right economic movements can both have authoritarian leaders.
However excessively authoritarian people are very resistant to acknowledging their problem.
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nigelj at 05:03 AM on 25 February 2018“How is That Conservative?” Former Climate Denier now Backs Action
"the only Good Purpose/Objective is actions that understandably improve the future for humanity."
So true. However it comes down to interpretations of good actions. Remember that quote from the Vietnam War. “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”
Excuse my cynicism. Everyone thinks they are doing good saving humanity. I guess a lot of education is needed on the right way of doing it!
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:36 AM on 25 February 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
NorrisM,
Upon further reflection I am adding to/changing my recommendation/hope for you.
I hope you will change your mind about what is acceptable and be able to correctly make statements like the example correction I provided without having to refer to yourself as part of the problem.
The future you indicate is indeed a 'possible future', especially if deliberately irresponsible and harmful leaders, like the current Winners of leadership in the USA, achieve more undeserved Winning in other locations.
The future of humanity requires more people actively trying to help others become more aware and better understanding of what is really going on and the corrections/changes required to actually improve the future for humanity.
Admittedly the required corrections have become significant for those who wasted the past several decades trying to prolong their ability to enjoy their life in ways that were understandably unsustainable and harmful to others, especially damaging to the future of humanity. The required corrections will indeed be perceived negatively by those people, but they will understand why they deserve a negative consequence, even if they fight against having to suffer it.
Those developed unsustainable perceptions of prosperity and opportunity will have to be corrected. Humanity has to have a better future.
Hopefully humanity is turning around. While you focus on finding evidence to try to justify continued reluctance to change direction, I see a declining number of wealthy people being able to easily impress people into supporting their understandably unsustainable and harmful desires.
The worst case scenario is indeed continued damaging winning by the wealthy and powerful who are opposed to the better understanding of the changes required by the constantly improved understanding of climate science (like the deliberate ignorance that allowed the USA sub-prime mortgage debacle to become the massive disaster it developed into).
Hopefully real responsible leaders will over-power the harmful less responsible pursuers of competitive advantage, like the ones in the USA who recently won the ability to do more harm to the future of humanity, to incrementally reverse progress towards a better future in their pursuit of damaging Private Interests.
We should all try to help others be more helpful, aware, and better understanding of what is really going on and how they think about the acceptability of things. That is key to over-powering those who try to Win by keeping people unaware, incorrectly aware, or misunderstanding what is going on.
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