Global Warming

[HKP90]

6 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Yes agree 100% as these are complicated mathematical models which predict things within a range with a certain probability of error. They're very good at predicting the temperature rising more or less. So the news where latest estimates predict xx temperature rise etc.. is pretty accurate.

The issue is really the headlines. The ice cap predictions through the 2000s all being wrong doesn't help convince those who don't get it. People know the temperature has been rising for decades the problem is the communication of the "so what" to get more people on our side. 

I think the so what part has been the failure to date. Predicting catastrophe doesn't work for a large portion of people. 

I personally don't care what people want to predict. I just know that a) it'll be manageable problems in the West and b) there is no reason what-so-ever for us not to transition completely to green renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions to slightly net negative. 

So predictions for me are irrelevant. What matters is how we get to net zero and net negative globally and how long it takes. Without sacrificing raising prosperity of the population over that time also. 

We need a new message to convince more people.

 

Fair points. 

In terms of transition to net zero, for me it has to be top down, starting with the energy producers. I mean it should be a no brainer. Renewable energy is (once infrastructure is in place) essentially deriving a saleable product for free. It must only be resistance to change that is keeping the big oil folks from switching wholesale to renewables. We're relying on governments to get them to make this switch and to ensure they price energy at a level which is reasonably close to cost of production. Do this, and it's your carrot. Significantly cheaper energy, significantly cheaper travel (as vehicles will be electric), and significantly cheaper prices on goods, as they will cost less to transport/make. 

[blandy]

4 hours ago, CVByrne said:

Predicting catastrophe doesn't work for a large portion of people. 

Maybe. Then again, look at the campaign around plastics. People's behaviours and their demands were shaped by things like the Blue Planet TV nature programmes. OK it portrayed catastrophe for wildlife and nature, but it was hugely effective, even if it wasn't the purpose of the series.

Combine a message of "this is bad for us" with legislation and with charities and businesses volutarily acting and problems become a lot more solvable all of a sudden.

[OutByEaster?]

8 hours ago, CVByrne said:

I just know that a) it'll be manageable problems in the West

What makes you think this?

[Xann]

Just had a couple of weeks with the best and brightest from our universities. That's where the China getting serious tip came from.

I'm actually a bit more enthused.

China and America both want to be top dog.

It was Sputnik and Gagarin that propelled America to the Moon as much as the Saturn V.

This time it's not a space race, it is actually saving the World.

Let the competition begin, we hope. Winner leads the way. God forbid they would actually cooperate?

Another positive aspect is AI being able to crawl through quite disparate historic scientific research worldwide.

Someone may have already stumbled across some phenomenon that opens up a dead end somewhere else?

AI is also capable of applying science in different ways. Some problems are easier solved not using our units of measurement in base 10.

Finally, when something is an absolute no brainer, change can be quite quick. LEDs completely changed pro lighting, three years saw a massive shift.

There will still be shit hitting the fan and misery, but perhaps there's some mitigating measures, for some of the problems, that will do a job?

People are a bit thick though. The economy model is untenable.

[CVByrne]

13 hours ago, blandy said:

Maybe. Then again, look at the campaign around plastics. People's behaviours and their demands were shaped by things like the Blue Planet TV nature programmes. OK it portrayed catastrophe for wildlife and nature, but it was hugely effective, even if it wasn't the purpose of the series.

Combine a message of "this is bad for us" with legislation and with charities and businesses volutarily acting and problems become a lot more solvable all of a sudden.

Tax on plastic bags also helped. But those are ways people themselves can make a change and solve problems. It's more complicated with Climate Change as individuals can't reshape a countries energy system from fossil fuels to renewable. That's a slow process. People making changes in the west to reduce their energy use by forgoing things like a holiday or owning a car etc.. are not good trade offs as they have immeasurably small impact on climate change and forgoing things has a negative to the economy which would cost peoples jobs if enough people did it. People should be more efficient with the energy we use better insulated homes, walk more than driving etc..

It's all trade offs for individuals though

[OutByEaster?]

61,000 excess deaths through heat last summer across Europe and this summer is a lot warmer.

Looks like there are parts of Europe that are pretty unpleasant for tourists at the moment.

 

 

 

[LondonLax]

Phoenix Arizona has top temperatures of around 47/48 degrees every day next week and overnight temperatures in the mid 30s. 

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, LondonLax said:

Phoenix Arizona has top temperatures of around 47/48 degrees every day next week and overnight temperatures in the mid 30s. 

At what point does that become uninhabitable, at least during the summer months?

 

[Captain_Townsend]

I Don't see why anybody would choose to ignore the experts on climate change.  I mean, why would you ignore it? If you love your children you imagine you would err on the side of caution and you try to do your bit for the environment and their future. Yet, on social media, I see so many complete and utterly morons deny climate change. The very worst describe it as 'weather' or sayidiotic things like 'it snowed here in January'.

Stupidity seems to have become a real right wing trope in the social media age.

[LondonLax]

3 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

At what point does that become uninhabitable, at least during the summer months?

 

It’s dry desert air so sweating helps but those are still brutal temperatures. 

The big danger is when humid tropical climates get warmer than 37 degrees. If the humidity is high but the temperature is still over 37 your body can’t do anything to cool itself. Sweating becomes pointless and you quickly get heatstroke. 

[chrisp65]

My nipper lived in Flagstaff just north of Phoenix for a couple of years, it sounded brutal at times.

Summer too hot to go outside, making sure you had stocks of water. Coupled with the altitude, 7,000 feet up, so the air was nice n thin anyway.

Winter constantly had a few feet of snow and regularly got to -10c.

But hey, at least in the winter they had outdoor underground heating (I’ll just repeat that, outdoor, underground, heating) so the paths stayed clear.

 

[LondonLax]

3 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

My nipper lived in Flagstaff just north of Phoenix for a couple of years, it sounded brutal at times.

Summer too hot to go outside, making sure you had stocks of water. Coupled with the altitude, 7,000 feet up, so the air was nice n thin anyway.

Winter constantly had a few feet of snow and regularly got to -10c.

But hey, at least in the winter they had outdoor underground heating (I’ll just repeat that, outdoor, underground, heating) so the paths stayed clear.

 

Lots of cities in Sweden have heated footpaths in town. It’s actually a more environmentally friendly way to use the excess heat generated from district heating. They run the water through the footpaths on the way back to the heating plant from the housing it was sent to heat. It discharges excess heat rather than doing it with a cooling tower. Discharging heat before it returns to the source improves the overall operational efficiency of the heating system. It has the added benefit of saving loads on accidents and injuries due to ice slips and there’s no need to run the snow clearing carts down those paths.

I don’t know if that’s what they are doing in Arizona but it might well be that the engineers over there have also come up with an efficient use for excess generated heat.

Edited July 15, 2023 by LondonLax

[CVByrne]

20 hours ago, Captain_Townsend said:

I Don't see why anybody would choose to ignore the experts on climate change.  I mean, why would you ignore it? If you love your children you imagine you would err on the side of caution and you try to do your bit for the environment and their future. Yet, on social media, I see so many complete and utterly morons deny climate change. The very worst describe it as 'weather' or sayidiotic things like 'it snowed here in January'.

Stupidity seems to have become a real right wing trope in the social media age.

There are a lot of stupid morons in the world. But let's be honest it's prevalent on both the left and right. There's just more dumb ignorant people in the world. period.

[mjmooney]

20 hours ago, Captain_Townsend said:

Stupidity seems to have become a real right wing trope in the social media age.

 

[HKP90]

3 hours ago, CVByrne said:

There are a lot of stupid morons in the world. But let's be honest it's prevalent on both the left and right. There's just more dumb ignorant people in the world. period.

True, but the morons on the left let the experts get on with their (hard earned) jobs 

Edited July 16, 2023 by HKP90

[CVByrne]

2 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

True, but the morons on the left let the experts get on with their (hard earned) jobs 

If only. Science is disregarded when it goes against the political message. Both on left and right.

Morons on the left testifying to congressional hearings that men have no biological advantage over women in sport being a recent example of idiocy.

 

[HKP90]

1 minute ago, CVByrne said:

If only. Science is disregarded when it goes against the political message. Both on left and right.

Morons on the left testifying to congressional hearings that men have no biological advantage over women in sport being a recent example of idiocy.

 

Oh don't get me wrong, the extreme left is almost as bad as the extreme right, but the example you give is not comparable with Climate Change, as there is a raft of empirical evidence to draw on with the latter. The former is a societal issue that we're just trying to find a balance with. You are right that empirically men do have a biological advantage over Women when it comes to physical strength, but the main arguments going on are around what we do about it, and how the right of equality squares with biological imbalances. I would also point out for balance that I think there are a whole host of things that women are much, much better at than men, it's just that men have always held the balance of power and are not in a struggle to assert their rights.  

Anyway, I don't really find left and right a helpful measure in cases like this, it's mainly intellectualism versus anti-intellectualism. 

There is nothing 'conservative' about using up all of our environmental and physical resources.  

[CVByrne]

4 hours ago, HKP90 said:

Oh don't get me wrong, the extreme left is almost as bad as the extreme right, but the example you give is not comparable with Climate Change, as there is a raft of empirical evidence to draw on with the latter. The former is a societal issue that we're just trying to find a balance with. You are right that empirically men do have a biological advantage over Women when it comes to physical strength, but the main arguments going on are around what we do about it, and how the right of equality squares with biological imbalances. I would also point out for balance that I think there are a whole host of things that women are much, much better at than men, it's just that men have always held the balance of power and are not in a struggle to assert their rights.  

Anyway, I don't really find left and right a helpful measure in cases like this, it's mainly intellectualism versus anti-intellectualism. 

There is nothing 'conservative' about using up all of our environmental and physical resources.  

No I'm saying they are testifying that there is no advantage for men over women, stating that as if it's the truth. Like it's just complete nonsense which undermines their position. My point was how can you engage in any form of discussion with any people who just disregard irrefutable evidence. Be the subject climate change or biological males in womens sport. We need to discuss solutions to the problems we face as a society absolutely, but we need to agree on things which are clearly true to have proper discussion. That's my point in relation to the raft of idiots on left and right out there these days. The nonsense of both shouldn't be tolerated. 

[tomav84]

On 15/07/2023 at 12:26, Captain_Townsend said:

I Don't see why anybody would choose to ignore the experts on climate change.  I mean, why would you ignore it? If you love your children you imagine you would err on the side of caution and you try to do your bit for the environment and their future. Yet, on social media, I see so many complete and utterly morons deny climate change. The very worst describe it as 'weather' or sayidiotic things like 'it snowed here in January'.

Stupidity seems to have become a real right wing trope in the social media age.

is it so simple as "gary linekar and the guardian says it so i must disagree"?

i don't even have kids, and we're not planning on having any...and we still recycle as much as possible and do our shopping at one of those refill shops to name but a couple of things we do.

as you say, even if you felt there was a 1% chance of climate change being real, is that not enough for you to take it seriously? especially if you have children

[CVByrne]

3 hours ago, tomav84 said:

is it so simple as "gary linekar and the guardian says it so i must disagree"?

i don't even have kids, and we're not planning on having any...and we still recycle as much as possible and do our shopping at one of those refill shops to name but a couple of things we do.

as you say, even if you felt there was a 1% chance of climate change being real, is that not enough for you to take it seriously? especially if you have children

How much does convincing those who remain skeptical matter? What does taking it seriously even mean? Let's say 60-70% of the UK population totally agree it's a serious key issue we need to tackle. Government need to create national policy and work with global partners on long term solutions. 

We're at that stage, climate change deniers are a minority. The discussion is really around what we do. Not if we need to do something.