Every year we find out climate change is worse than expected and accelerating faster than expected.
I'm not saying this as a way to minimize these findings but rather to point out that we should expect things to get worse.
Humanity needs to act now.
I'm not saying this as a way to minimize these findings but rather to point out that we should expect things to get worse.
Humanity needs to act now.
Climate Town has a great video essay on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MondapIjAAM
Do you truly think this gets fixed in any significant way?
The only underlying science was some debate about whether air pollution, the kind you can see and scrape off your skin, was going to be so bad that it would offset the greenhouse effect. But Nixon effectively ended that debate with the Clean Air Act.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1756074
I mentioned it in an earlier comment but it was also in my science textbook in my elementary school days.
The science it was based on, of course, was the fact that ice ages are cyclical and we are well towards what would typically be the end of an interglacial period:
"the last four interglacials lasted over ~20,000 years with the warmest portion being a relatively stable period of 10,000 to 15,000 years duration. This is consistent with what is seen in the Vostok ice core from Antarctica and several records of sea level high stands. These data suggest that an equally long duration should be inferred for the current interglacial period as well. Work in progress on Devils Hole data for the period 60,000 to 5,000 years ago indicates that current interglacial temperature conditions may have already persisted for 17,000 years."
-- https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-long-can-we-expect-present-int...
You also had the fact that some of the coldest (and snowiest) winters on record in the US were during the 1970's, most notably during 1977 when it snowed in Miami and the Bahamas for the only time in recorded history, and temperatures in much of the midwest stayed below freezing for over a month. So of course articles about a new ice age would attract readers, even though any return to ice age conditions would happen over centuries, if it wasn't disrupted by humans.
It really was a lot of snow though, we were out of school for like two weeks in the spring of 1978.
In the Fort Worth Star Telegram, 27 Sep 1981, is the article "World's mercury inching upward", discussing the science which wouldn't look out of place today. But it wasn't until the end of the 80s that the US government started to take it seriously.
And it mostly worked.
The first time I was ever mad about politics was in grade school, when some fake magazine for kids (probably one of the ads from Scholastic) had an interview with Ronald Reagan, and what the interviewer thought kids needed to know about Reagan was how crazy he was for jelly beans.
If I had known the phrase, "What in the actual fuck?" I would have said it out loud.
It would be 6 more years before someone summed up how terrifying the 1980's were and that man's name was Phil Collins (Genesis, Land of Confusion). But those bases were already loaded with... well, take your pick. You can go with Michael Keaton Movies about the crumbling economy or West German rock bands with a sprinkling of Sting ('Russians') while we all collectively crossed our fingers that we wouldn't wake up on The Day After.
https://harpers.org/archive/1958/09/the-coming-ice-age/
I have a distinct memory of my “science” textbook in 2nd grade circa 1981 had a section on the upcoming ice age. Once I realized that the book was old enough to not include the moon landing I didn’t pay much attention to it.
In any case, the idea about an impending ice age was in the science zeitgeist, at least the layman understanding of it well before the 80s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Con...
Here's how various models made during the 80s fared though: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-m...
Not unreasonably badly really. On the other hand I haven't really seen evidence from what I've heard from various far-right figures of a sudden shift to global cooling, cessation of global warming, or any sort of dramatically lower rate of global warming than expected. Usually I see people cite what Al Gore said in an inconvenient truth being wrong, but the thing is there's actually quite a few models which weren't wrong so why wouldn't you believe those?
If anything I've heard arguments shift from "global warming isn't happening" towards "peoples models of how climate change will impact the economy are wrong" and "it's easier to adapt to climate change than move away from fossil fuels" and "Doing things about climate change is pointless when $COUNTRY and $CORPORATION won't do anything" and recently "carbon pricing kills poor people through poverty today for a speculative benefit in the future". Maybe with a sprinkling of "The climate has always changed" (yes) and "Climate change - manmade?" (yes).
I kid, but I guess that is what’s at the root of it. A fear of change and wanting to believe it isn’t so, because then there’s no need for change.
The whole attitude is foreign to me, because I believe in following the evidence wherever it takes me, no matter how frightening I find it. It would be easier if I could believe the comforting lie sometimes.
There are yearly conferences where hundreds of private jets emit more Co2 into the world than the average person will in their lifetime. And the people attending these conferences step off their jet, drive in a motorcade of SUVs to the venue, and sign documents committing to disburse billions of taxpayer dollars to LLCs and corporations their friends will form before next year's conference when they'll do it all over again. They'll lament about the epidemic of science denialism afflicting the common folk, and then they'll get back on their jets and fly back to one of their multiple homes to continue hoarding and growing their obscene wealth.
When you dismiss criticism of the status quo as "science denialism" or whatever perjorative is en vogue amongst your fellow saviors of "our democracy," you are serving the agenda of the biggest polluters on the planet, by looking the other way while they facilitate global corruption and forego any legitimate mitigation of the impending catastrophe you care so virtuously about preventing to stave off the existential threat so many of your fellow non-billionaires are too ignorant and science-denying to recognize.
I would also stress what climate change is going to mean and connect it to contemporary politics. Economic migration is for the most part a very controversial thing especially among the type of people also against reforms regarding limiting ghg emissions etc. Realistically some of this is ALREADY caused by climate change, but we're going to see a LOT more of it caused by climate change, so if people don't want it to happen in the first place and also want to plausibly convince the general electorate they have no ethical obligation to take in migrants, than doing something about climate change early is expedient. This is not just international migration it will also be national migration and yuppies fleeing coastal cities which will get much more expensive generally leading to scarcity and inflation. Climate change it likely is going to have a rather adverse effect on purchasing power, notably for food, and we're only seeing the beginnings of high food prices if not outright famine due to both production and distribution constraints. Due to these legions of practical issues, not only should people support such reforms, the political will for different countries to impose measures against powerful corporations will pick up steam.
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_ha02700w.pd...
Feel free to superimpose today's data[1] on Figure 3 from the above report. Link to the CSV file is here [2] to save you some time with the analysis. Some discussion here [3] (2007). Seems to me that if you compare against the most recent data, scenario B ("the most plausible" of 3 scenarios) is pretty close to dead-on.
[1] https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v4/graph_data/Glob...
[2] https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v4/
[3] https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hanse...
Most everyone will still be driving gas/petrol cars
No evidence will appear that will convince me [the denialist] that climate change is real
Peak oil won’t happen until 2020 at the earliest
As a meteorologist, I know that persistence is very often a correct forecast. Inability to predict change is when people die, though.
The great salt lake is not even close to full.
We have less arctic ice.
Sea levels are higher.
But as you said, this isn’t an argument either of us will win, so agree to disagree?
Gonna need a citation there.
You understand that it’s part of the Colorado river, which is (pre-global warming) one of the highest flow rivers in the world (it literally carved the Grand Canton).
The path of The Colorado pre-Hoover Dam still went through Black Canyon. Stop all human intervention, the River still goes there.
Where else is the Rocky snowpack going?
You can’t make any inroads on convincing people if you don’t understand their arguments, so I try to do so. Having studied climatology in university I have heard dumb arguments galore, and not from anyone in my field.
Most people are waiting for big corporate entities or the government to do something. Yell that they need to do something, but in the meantime go about the lives as if nothing needs changing. People only care as long as it doesn't affect them and someone else acts or makes the decisions. It's despicable
Every person on this planet has the power and responsibility to change and act now, we do not need to wait for government and corporations to change. Waiting is just an excuse, and really is just slowing the desired outcome.
I would take issue with that statement. It is very difficult to make the sort of personal changes which would eliminate your own footprint. It might be impossible without leaving civilization entirely, largely because of how our societies and markets are structured.
Here is the story of a journalist who tried to go a full day without using plastics (disable JS if you get a paywall):
The better is not the enemy of the best.
But that was an example, plastics are only one small part of the problem. Production of energy, metals, wood, food, etc. Disposal of the toxic byproducts. Nothing we do at a large scale is clean or sustainable, and there's almost no accountability for any of it. Individuals don't have the ability to meaningfully influence all of that, outside of large-scale political action.
If you look at the meat industry, and we all agree it's environmentally impactful to absurd degrees, one might apply that same all or nothing mentality here - which is incorrect. You don't need to become a vegan to have dramatic impact, but what if it became a norm to go a day without meat? We already have some religious expectations about that, we even have cultural norms that have altered what we eat and when (breakfast = sugary carbs in the West), why can we not do the same here? But this cannot happen magically, it involves individuals making the choice to encourage themselves and then their families. Everyone can do this.
I bring up a day without meat (per week) because it's a great example of how little change is actually required to have tremendous results. But we cannot get to those results if we expect some gigantic overnight change.
So going back to your article, you don't have to leave civilization entirely, and going plastic free overnight is silly. But, you can buy shampoo that comes in recyclable cardboard instead of those tacky bottles. You can eat delicious veggie meals for an entire day once a week. You can buy reusable utensils that you carry with you instead of demanding they be offered. You can use refillable containers to buy your groceries with and store them. List is truly endless.
You, yes you, can have a great impact. We as humans just struggle understanding long term impact. In the exact same way that we see someone like Michael Jordan and think he's naturally gifted, and ignore him spending 8+ hours a day practicing for years and how those choices have compounded for him.
However, behaviour is learned by sharing. In that mind set, the best course of action is, in addition to one's own virtue, to encourage others to also recognize the situation and to change their own ways. In this way, one multiplies their own impact. People need to be the first movers of any social change, regardless of their own insignificant impact, because behaviour spreads and eventually industry will have no choice but to change.
Simply sitting at the sidelines complaining of industrial pollution is about as helpful as watching your own house burn.
Acting responsibly makes us feel better, but little else. The fact of the matter is the problem is not individuals, it's government and industry. What can any individual do to stop the burning of fossil fuels? To stop deforestation? To curb industrial agriculture? To stop the concrete and glass industries? To clean up shipping?
I'm not being cynical, you're just focusing on the wrong people. Every individual on earth could begin to reduce their carbon contribution to nothing, and it wouldn't make a dent on Climate Change, It isn't us, it really isn't. We can only elect so many liberals and environmentalist conscious politicians, because the stupid is very strong in our country. To fix the problem, we need to focus on the problem, of which more than 99.9% are the list of major carbon and greenhouse gas contributors. I think we need to start with energy production, and silence the entitled energy hogs insisting on more and more energy no matter the consequences. Then work down from there, agriculture, construction, glass, shipping, etc. And that will make a difference if we could just target the top 10 greenhouse gas producers.
Companies will only do the bare minimum they need to and there main goal is to make lots of cash for shareholders. If everyone starts to do there bit, things will start to change much faster
At the moment, most people are sitting back and waiting for someone else to make the decisions and to.
What more power beyond, say, recycling and using public transportation can an individual person have? Note how this narrative is literally shifting the blame from corporations, industries, and governments to individual people. "It's your fault you're not doing enough".
Meanwhile, Germany alone, thanks to the actions of its government, is responsible for more carbon emissions on a single night than I can even theoretically reduce over a milion lifetimes.
They shut down their nuclear reactors, and right now even on a windy night they burn coal and gas to make up for the difference: https://imgur.com/a/3bYudyd
What can I, and individual, do to fix the issue that it takes three trains with a high chance of failures and delays, to get to a destination within my country on what is a direct route from city to city?
etc.
Stop shifting blame to individuals
Renewable energy is growing faster than expected, and population growth is slowing faster than expected. We do not appear to be on track to meet worst cases scenarios from the IPCC. Note that I'm not saying there won't be/aren't harms, just that the rate of change does not seem to be accelerating.
Edit: here’s a graph. I see no reason to feel optimistic. https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions
If it’s flat 5 years from now then I’d be inclined to agree with you.
Edit: and here is more damning evidence. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over time is not flattening.
Second, what matters most is the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Here is a graph of that, and it's continuing to increase. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/...
One reason that the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere matters more than emissions is that we could also be reducing the planet's ability to remove greenhouse gasses through things like deforestation. I wish there were evidence to believe we are on the right track, but there isn't any at this stage. There are positive things, but in aggregate, it's getting worse as of this moment, not better.
My evidence is clear, and here. You haven't shown any to support your claims. At this point I can't tell if you are arguing in bad faith, are arguing just to argue, or don't understand the topic. If you don't provide any evidence or sound good faith reasoning after this, I won't reply.
edit: typos
I never claimed GHG wasn't continuing to increase, though maybe that's what you thought I meant. I meant to discuss the original commenter's opinion that global warming was accelerating. It's not accelerating. It's slowing. Emissions are still increasing, yes, because we don't have a deficit. But increasing isn't the same thing as accelerating.
You can also see this in how the actual temperature of the earth (the only metric that matters) has not increased in the past few years. https://climate.nasa.gov/ (click on "global temperature")
Another important metric is that per-capita GHG emissions are declining across the developed world. This indicates we are increasing the efficiency of our society significantly. This is trade-adjusted, so it accounts for emissions embedded in imported goods. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...
"I meant to discuss the original commenter's opinion that global warming was accelerating. It's not accelerating. It's slowing."
I don't think you can conclude this at this time, but even if you want to believe it, it's still increasing (GHGs in the atmosphere and temperatures), and that's very bad news.
"You can also see this in how the actual temperature of the earth (the only metric that matters) has not increased in the past few years"
Again, you can't draw conclusions from 3 data points. Not sure if you are arguing in bad faith here, or simply don't understand. Look back at either the temperature graph or the emissions graph and you can find several 3 year periods where it didn't increase, then it shot right back up again. In the case of the last few years of temperatures, that's due to the La Nina (link below) which lowers temperatures, when we switch back to the El Nino it's going to shoot up again, and likely start breaking records again. We are not on the right track, and all of the evidence shows this.
Emissions not accelerating is of course important because 1) it was what the conversation was literally about and 2) it’s a necessary prerequisite for them going down. Plus, as I showed, emissions are going down, not just not accelerating, in developed nations.
Emissions going down is the right track, emissions going up or accelerating is the wrong track.
What is it you want to see? Zero emissions? Obviously that’s going to take a while, it won’t happen overnight. And before it does, they have to start going down. And zero emissions isn’t even enough, we have to go negative by capturing carbon. Unless we think 1.1C over pre industrial is acceptable. Which obviously we don’t because people are talking about current effects of warming.
So no, not all of the evidence shows that we are not “on the right track”. It’s true only if you ignore the evidence that contradicts your worldview.
Emissions are NOT going down, full stop. At this point it's clear you are arguing in bad faith, so I'm done. 20 years ago people made the exact same dishonest arguments you are now, that over a few data points temperatures stopped going up, climate change was over! Every time there's a La Nina the same bad faith argument returns. In 5 years when it's clear that what you've said is wrong, you'll move on to some other bad faith argument like they did. I've seen the pattern over and over again over the last 25 years.
The evidence I've provided is clear, and I'm confident that anyone with more than two brain cells that reads it will see the obvious reality that it illustrates.
It seems like its easier for you to pretend I'm some kind of global warming denier than to actually engage with what I'm saying.
It's fascinating psychologically, but obviously we're not having a productive conversation. I hope you're able in the future to look at this stuff with clearer eyes. It doesn't seem like you'll be very helpful in solving this problem if this is how you approach it.
10 years ago, we thought we'd be in a worse situation than we are now. Things are still getting worse, but getting worse at a slower rate. If the change in rate continues, things will start to get better at some point.
It will be decades before we can see the results of those actions.
> We do not appear to be on track to meet worst cases scenarios from the IPCC
The worst as in reaching +5ºC on average around 2100? Maybe not, but we're 100% going to shoot beyond +2ºC global avg in the coming decades.
But it gets worse.
Europe is warming at 2x the global avg.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/02/europes-...
The Arctic is warming 4x the global avg.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00498-3
The Arctic has a huge influence on the climate of Europe and NA. Also the warming will trigger climatic feedbacks (arctic ice, methane, etc) if that hasn't happened already. There's no human way to stop feedbacks. It's like trying to stop an earthquake.
Etc.
So yeah, things are looking pretty dire.
You not only have to change planning, you also need to change all the existing cities to accomodate that planning
What
On the other hand, I, too, want to live in a house with a green space of my own, and would complain loudly if I was forced to change
There are a few exceptions like London (7 million in the 19th century, 9 million now), but most cities are not London.
>>>>The first step is to make it possible to live without a car.
>>>The first step is to set up separated bike lanes and improved electrified bus/rail routes.
>>The first step is to convince the legislature to shift infrastructure funding away from building new roads.
>The first step is to elect the right candidates, build a base of support, and draft an amendment which can get through the next budget showdown.
And so on...although it's more of a sprawling tree than a descending list.
That part's made even more difficult by there typically not being any right candidates at all.
1. The climate problem is way too ideal of a problem that absolutely requires government intervention (at this point anyways). This sets off big red flags for me, because it makes us more dependent and beholden to "savior" government. We can't fix it - only government can!
2. I am more worried about the messed-up, exotic, forever chemicals we're slowly seeping into everything, because at least with climate change we can probably engineer around it on a big scale. These chemicals? That's the stuff of global-scale annihilation by infertility and hormonal changes in our entire species. Think Alex Jones' crazy "the fluoride in the water is turning the frogs gay".
https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2023/04/18/florida-insurance-...
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-22/fraud-lit... | https://archive.is/Njkww
[2] https://www.mic.com/impact/climate-change-is-ravaging-florid...
[3] https://www.floir.com/siteDocuments/OIR-B1-1802.pdf
[4] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/21/how-to-build-a-hurricane-res...
(one of my properties is insured by the state's high risk pool at an elevation 90 ft above sea level)
>Humanity needs to act now.
And do what exactly? The kill count from shutting down all emission-producing parts of society would be enormous, and it still wouldn't be enough to keep global warming at a level that is habitable for a good chunk of people on the planet.
Net zero carbon by 2030 is a joke, literally nobody is on track to meet those targets and BOE will happen before then at the rate we're going anyway.
We rather spend it on the military or pensions.
My understanding is that nothing short of a massive, forced reduction in resource consumption will do anything to seriously slow down carbon emissions and curb climate change, if indeed it can be curbed.
But how do shut down pensions?
France tried to increase the age of retirement and people got angry. An alternative solution is to cut the pensions a little, but I guess people will get angry too.
In USA the system is different and they save they money and later get their money back, so cutting it is more obvios stealing, but I guess it's possible because they can't make a strike. [We tried something like that. The banks got a nice direct cut, the government got another nice indirect cut, and after some years we decided to make all retirement public again and in the transition the banks got a nice indirect cut, the government got another nice direct cut.]
Remember that one day you will retire, and you may like to have a good enough retirement salary. You don't want to be blamed for whatever new problem appears and get a 20% cut of your retirement money. (Are solar panels more difficult to recicle than expected? Did the wind turbine kill too many birds? Probably not, but it's difficult to guess the problems will know in 50 years.)
We're going to be destroyed by the narcissism and sociopathy of our supposed leaders.
And I don't mean our elected politicians, who are largely ornamental. I mean the individuals who buy and sell them.
There is no scenario where the situation is fixed, there are only situations where it MAY be 'less disastrous', but it's entirely speculative.
Are we going to see any realistic solutions to climate change, the ones which do not expose you as a religious person who want to flagellate themself and still be a sinner?
This might change in a decade or two due to electorate and therefore representation turnover. Until then, you’re on your own.
Edit: @thriftwy reply here because of comment throttling
Will they though? Sounds like those folks are uniquely positioned to take the brunt of climate change. Hard to say who is going to a) still be living and b) have power that far out into the future.
Long story short, do what you can with what you have where you are while staying emotionally healthy and grounded. That’s all that really can be done imho. Take care.
In a decade or two, most of world's electorate, in terms of energy production and manufacturing production capacity, will be people from China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Brazil and the like. Iran, Uzbekistan and Tunisia. Maybe Nigeria or Congo. You will have to start climate change debate afresh because post-christian flagellation is starting on a seriously wrong foot when talking to these people (to whom I am not a complete stranger). The audience who is now receptive to climate change talks will be largely irrelevant.