Global Warming Revisited

[Zoomerang96]

This is the biggest challenge the planet faces, and I think the collective shrug that it's being met with is going to prove catastrophic.

This is bigger than Trump, nuclear war, etc.

Optics is a problem, in that the public at large don't appreciate that an increase in temperature by 2 or 3 degrees in such a short period of time has/will create climate events that will prove extraordinarily expensive both financially and in human life.

[BEAL]

I'm not sure why people don't care. Maybe it's cause they believe these bad things are decades away that it'll change before then. Change for bad news to meh

But it appears as tho we'll continue to se these powerful storms hit and it'll drain our resources to build back up.

It's kinda scary to think about how much will change in a short amount of time. Just thinking about water supply and demand ....

[dabiggestu2fan]

Well all these global warming deniers better get used to the storms like Irma, harvey, sandy etc because if nothing changes, they will become the norm.

[LuckyNumber7]

I'd say arguing over hurricanes is a poor argument when it comes to global warming. Better to stick to the argument of rising sea levels, erosion, and general threat to low laying areas

Hurricanes are still highly probabilistic, and will be for some time. When someone suggests more are on the way due to global warming, and less come due to general cycles, you accidentally end up promoting the wrong brand of skepticism

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by Oregoropa

Ten years ago it was predicted Hurricanes would become even more violent a frequent, but in fact the opposite has occurred.

Ha. Ha. Hahahahahah.

*sigh*

[AEON]

Once non-subsidized solar power is the cheapest energy source, and that is within a 5-10 years, none of this matters. What I mean by that is nobody will pay EXTRA money in order to pollute.

[kiwilad]

Originally Posted by AEON

Once non-subsidized solar power is the cheapest energy source, and that is within a 5-10 years, none of this matters. What I mean by that is nobody will pay EXTRA money in order to pollute.

Simplistic, but i get your point.
Issue is, pulling public money out of renewables R&D while at the same time championing coal and oil is counterproductive to that 5-10 year target.
That difference in opinion is shaping as a defining feature in my country's election right now. Here, both major parties are on the climate change bus, but one is much more 'softly softly' about how to deal with it. And for the first time that appears to be a vote loser.

Incidentally, Aeon, you said you were a military man - is there any sort of step change going on in the military re emissions, renewables etc?

[Moonlit_Angel]

Originally Posted by dabiggestu2fan

Well all these global warming deniers better get used to the storms like Irma, harvey, sandy etc because if nothing changes, they will become the norm.

Gotta love, too, how all this stuff is happening the same year that Trump pulls the U.S. out of that Paris agreement.

On a non-political note, hope that anyone here who is either in the path of Irma or any people they know who are in its path are safe and sound somewhere. Take care, guys, and check in when you can so we know you're all right.

[AEON]

Originally Posted by kiwilad

Incidentally, Aeon, you said you were a military man - is there any sort of step change going on in the military re emissions, renewables etc?

Great question! Yes, I've seen a dramatic change in attitude and policy during my career. There is usually an Environmental Officer in every unit (extra duty for a Second Lieutenant (usually), but they make sure that all hazardous materials are accounted for (paints, solvents, oil, cleaner...)and they are stored and disposed of properly. There is civilian oversight and they perform audits and assist in the disposal process.

Also, parking a vehicle without an oil pan beneath will get you chewed out by a Senior NCO (and you'll also be digging out the oil spot with a shovel). All vehicle are assumed to be leaking...

While it will be some time before you see electric and natural gas vehicles on any large scale, there are projects and prototypes floating around. The military still uses stuff from the Gulf War...so it will take a long time to replace what is already out there....

The push to digital records has greatly reduced the amount of paper being used/stored. So, that's saving trees and reducing the need to house tons and tons of paper records...

On a more subjective level, almost every Soldier I work has general care and respect for the environment. We're out "in nature" often and when it's time to leave an area there is always a police call to pick up any trash. Leaving garbage will certainly get the leadership reprimanded.

Of course...I'm speaking of garrisons and training areas. During war...well...depends on the mission and the location. Some missions are actually setting up solar panels...other missions might be to blow up those same solar panels...

[Kieran McConville]

Originally Posted by Zoomerang96

This is the biggest challenge the planet faces, and I think the collective shrug that it's being met with is going to prove catastrophic.

This is bigger than Trump, nuclear war, etc.

Optics is a problem, in that the public at large don't appreciate that an increase in temperature by 2 or 3 degrees in such a short period of time has/will create climate events that will prove extraordinarily expensive both financially and in human life.

It's that it is collectively in the too-hard basket. It extends beyond any national border, and the policy progamme adopted by any single country or government is

a. often of symbolic value (eg. as if the Australian government doing the right thing - which it is not, for the most part - would make a lick of difference to the fate of the Great Barrier Reef; ocean and air currents don't stop at national borders)

and b. easily reversed by a successor government.

The various big ticket agreements (it used to be Kyoto, now it's Paris) are... unimpressive, to me. Do they have teeth where it counts?

It's simply in the too hard basket. There are silver linings in the impressive advance of some renewables like solar energy, and in technologies around battery storage, enough that coal, and eventually oil, probably have a pretty limited future. But that can be strung out for a long time and I guess we're stuck with the semi-predictable consequences.

One thing - whatever you think of her generally - that Naomi Klein got right in her book a few years back was that the far right in America were, despite themselves, making some kind of ideological sense in their utter rejection of the science behind climate change. Unlike many mainstream liberals, they correctly perceived that this absolutely does represent the end of business as usual.

[Kieran McConville]

Originally Posted by LuckyNumber7

I'd say arguing over hurricanes is a poor argument when it comes to global warming. Better to stick to the argument of rising sea levels, erosion, and general threat to low laying areas

Hurricanes are still highly probabilistic, and will be for some time. When someone suggests more are on the way due to global warming, and less come due to general cycles, you accidentally end up promoting the wrong brand of skepticism

This is a good point, and for one thing, the consequences of warmer ocean waters might not necessarily be more and more hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons - there might actually be less, numerically - but more chance of them being worse when they happen.

[Mac_Fly]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

Is it time to revisit the claims of global warming / climate change?

I think it's time.

President Obama called skeptics (like me) of global climate change as those of believe in a flat earth.

The following is just one of several reports I have seen online. I have seen nothing in the mainstream media reporting on these current studies.

What do you think?]

What do I think? For those who have to deal with it professionally, climate change isn't in dispute. Agriculture experts, epidemiologists, disaster preparedness teams, civil engineers, military planners and the like can no more deny the state of the climate than an astronaut could believe in a Flat Earth. It's a part of their jobs.

I quote Gavin Schmidt (NASA): "gases don’t care whether you are a Republican or a Democrat – left wing, right wing – libertarian, or conservative."

Why aren't the rest of us like the pros?

[AEON]

Originally Posted by Mac_Fly

What do I think? For those who have to deal with it professionally, climate change isn't in dispute. Agriculture experts, epidemiologists, disaster preparedness teams, civil engineers, military planners and the like can no more deny the state of the climate than an astronaut could believe in a Flat Earth. It's a part of their jobs.

I quote Gavin Schmidt (NASA): "gases don’t care whether you are a Republican or a Democrat – left wing, right wing – libertarian, or conservative."

Why aren't the rest of us like the pros?

Solar power ends the debate....

[kiwilad]

Originally Posted by AEON

Solar power ends the debate....

Not in Dunedin, NZ, it doesn't. Our next-door neighbour is a wee place called Antarctica.

[LuckyNumber7]

Originally Posted by kiwilad

Not in Dunedin, NZ, it doesn't. Our next-door neighbour is a wee place called Antarctica.

That's not a nice thing to call Australia.

[dabiggestu2fan]

Originally Posted by Kieran McConville

This is a good point, and for one thing, the consequences of warmer ocean waters might not necessarily be more and more hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons - there might actually be less, numerically - but more chance of them being worse when they happen.

This is what i was trying to get at actually. Not that there will be more hurricanes per say but warmer waters means that the hurricanes we do get could be much stronger. Harvey, Irma and Jose became major hurricanes all in the same season and the waters around the golf of Mexico and areas where Irma and Jose developed are in the 80's temperature wise.! And not just hurricanes but other weather events becomes more extreame with warming temperatures. Whether it be droughts to floods. We may not see more of them, just more extreame.

[LuckyNumber7]

Indeed. More extreme weather is definitely observable, but we should still avoid sensationalizing things.

10 or so years ago, when I was in middle school, I got to see nearly three hurricane eyes (two, at the end of the day). Jeanne and Frances, followed by Wilma a year later.

It was that 2004-2006 part of time where we were literally seeing dozens of storms making landfall across the US. A decade has past since that anomaly, where things went back to normal. People have forgotten two things: 1) the danger of hurricanes and 2) who is prepared.

From a Floridian perspective, I'm not worried about my family and friends back home. That state has been built and rebuilt and rebuilt and rebuilt again and again and again to be stronger and better prepared for hurricanes. The people who will end up dead in Florida during the hurricane likely did something foolish (most of the people who die get struck by a tree in Florida, or refuse to leave their boat homes or something).

However, places like Houston were truly fucked. That city wasn't built for that, and was absolutely flood prone. It's something like in Houston where the city wasn't ready, and the people likely forgot just how dangerous storms can be.

Anyways, back to global warming and trying to convince someone of the science. Hurricanes aren't the way to do that. Trying to scare someone isn't the way to do it, either. Especially someone who doesn't believe you already. There's irrefutable evidence that can be presented with data - of course that's not something that's always in non scientific speak, so not everyone will get it.

But, at the end of the day, I think regardless of what you choose to "believe," there's plenty of beautiful arguments towards a capitalist venture of renewables *anyways*. Queue Elon Musk and SolarCity. When in doubt, target someone's logic by going the positive route. I don't think climate change has time for politic-like arguments.

[dabiggestu2fan]

Originally Posted by LuckyNumber7

Indeed. More extreme weather is definitely observable, but we should still avoid sensationalizing things.

10 or so years ago, when I was in middle school, I got to see nearly three hurricane eyes (two, at the end of the day). Jeanne and Frances, followed by Wilma a year later.

It was that 2004-2006 part of time where we were literally seeing dozens of storms making landfall across the US. A decade has past since that anomaly, where things went back to normal. People have forgotten two things: 1) the danger of hurricanes and 2) who is prepared.

From a Floridian perspective, I'm not worried about my family and friends back home. That state has been built and rebuilt and rebuilt and rebuilt again and again and again to be stronger and better prepared for hurricanes. The people who will end up dead in Florida during the hurricane likely did something foolish (most of the people who die get struck by a tree in Florida, or refuse to leave their boat homes or something).

However, places like Houston were truly fucked. That city wasn't built for that, and was absolutely flood prone. It's something like in Houston where the city wasn't ready, and the people likely forgot just how dangerous storms can be.

Anyways, back to global warming and trying to convince someone of the science. Hurricanes aren't the way to do that. Trying to scare someone isn't the way to do it, either. Especially someone who doesn't believe you already. There's irrefutable evidence that can be presented with data - of course that's not something that's always in non scientific speak, so not everyone will get it.

But, at the end of the day, I think regardless of what you choose to "believe," there's plenty of beautiful arguments towards a capitalist venture of renewables *anyways*. Queue Elon Musk and SolarCity. When in doubt, target someone's logic by going the positive route. I don't think climate change has time for politic-like arguments.

Well said LN7 there is certainly better arguments and scientific data to support global warming is real and occurring, I guess using hurricanes as the arguments is the easiest argument because it is the most visible as opposed to say seeing an increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. But it is a lazy argument to just use the frequency and severity of hurricanes as the only fact of global warming, I know I fall into this trap sometimes too. There are much better arguments out there. The thing that gets me though is that to some (I don't want to paint every global warming denier with the same brush) but some deniers, you could present a mountian of scientific data to support this and they come up with what ever argument (silly or not) to refute this, much like the moon landing hoax people. Again let me say that only SOME act like that, I am not generalizing every global warming denier as blatantly ignoring the facts.

[kiwilad]

Originally Posted by LuckyNumber7

That's not a nice thing to call Australia.

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Originally Posted by dabiggestu2fan

Well all these global warming deniers better get used to the storms like Irma, harvey, sandy etc because if nothing changes, they will become the norm.

Originally Posted by LuckyNumber7

I'd say arguing over hurricanes is a poor argument when it comes to global warming. Better to stick to the argument of rising sea levels, erosion, and general threat to low laying areas

Hurricanes are still highly probabilistic, and will be for some time. When someone suggests more are on the way due to global warming, and less come due to general cycles, you accidentally end up promoting the wrong brand of skepticism

Yea to second LN7 here... I'm not a climate change skeptic at all, but I cringe when people toss out storms like Sandy and Harvey as examples, as they end up playing into the hands of the dopes that think that climate change doesn't exist.

The destruction caused by Harvey and Sandy were results of high pressure blocks in the upper atmosphere that didn't allow the storms to escape the way they may have otherwise done. In Harvey's case it kept the storm stationary, and it was able to refuel itself with its own rain. In Sandy's case, the high pushed the storm directly into the NJ coast, and the wrap around winds pushed the waters of the Long Island Sound into the East River, which was too small to hold the amount of water coming in.

Neither was a result of global warming.

Irma? Sure, you could make that argument that the water is warmer in more places around the Caribbean now, which helped fuel the storm.