Climate Change | UN Report: Code Red for humanity

Buster15

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WPMUFC

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Cop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels

The president of Cop28, Sultan Al Jaber, has claimed there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C, the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting can reveal.

Al Jaber also said a phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves”.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environ...president-dismisses-phase-out-of-fossil-fuels
 

BD

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Depressing how inevitable it all is
 

Smores

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WPMUFC said:
https://amp.theguardian.com/environ...-would-be-death-certificate-for-small-islands

The COP draft is so bad that Australia, USA, Canada, Japan and UK are threatening to blow it up.
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Truth is they just want a better illusion of change and the likes of Saudi are making it too obvious how ineffective COP is. I think a good comparison is Financial Fair Play (or whatever it's now called) and COP agreements are probably even less effective than that.

Until there's sanctions and real funding back to the worst impacted countries then it's all just for show. There's plenty of metrics you could put together to track output, offset mechanisms for emerging countries so they can still expand. At it's most simple you track emissions back to the consumer, not the producer, and you measures countries replacements of emissions rather than the total produced.
 

Buster15

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This is a perfect example of what Sunak actually thinks about climate change.
He has ordered the government climate change MP to FLY back to London just to vote in favour of the Rwanda plan and then FLY back to COP28.
What a wonderful example to set. And the rest of the world will see this as the UK talking absolute rubbish when it tries to press other countries into cutting CO2 emissions.
 

WPMUFC

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JezChan said:
It's too cold in Newcastle, so let's dial up global temperatures.

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"we need to bring back the supersonic airlines because they use 3x the fuel and float oil burning barges around Africa to stimulate demand"

Genuinely cartoon levels of evil.
 

Buster15

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Ekkie Thump

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Usually don't post long youtubes (18-19min + an end ad) but I like listening to this woman and she's never struck me as alarmist. She's a physicist, so not an expert, but she knows how to read scientific literature and I think this is the first video I've watched in which she's ever sounded worried:


Supercliffs:
  • Though not yet proven there is an argument of growing plausibility that the central number the IPCC uses to predict the speed and ferocity of future climate scenarios may have been significantly underestimated. IF this is true we have less time to react to worse climate change than we had hitherto thought.

Cliffs:
  • There's a little broadcast controversy in climate science regarding a thing called the "Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity" number (ECS).
  • Basically this number describes the ground temperature change required for a climate system to reach equilibrium if we double CO2 from pre-industrial levels.
  • This is the central number which the IPCC uses to make predictions about how quickly the climate will heat up in its models and how hot it will get overall once it has reached its new equilibrium.
  • Up until 2019 the CMIP (an amalgamation of about 60 climate models which the IPCC uses) predicted an ECS of 2 - 4.5 degrees.
  • The outlier numbers of this range provide the lower and upper bounds on all those climate prediction graphs you see. Eg:
  • At any rate, since 2019 more than 10 of these models have been predicting an ECS in excess of 5 degrees.
  • At first it was thought that this was a problem with the models because they were not back compatible with scientifically solid paleoclimatology ECS estimates which rather agreed with the 2 - 4.5 degree scenarios the IPCC was using. It was then termed the "Hot model problem" and their lack of backwards compatibility led to them being severely discounted when arriving at the central figure the IPCC uses for predictions.
  • The problem is that the main difference between the hot models and the others is how they describe the physical processes going on in clouds.
  • We don't have paleoclimatological data for clouds, so our surety that the models are wrong lacks direct evidence of the central variable that defines these models.
  • A published paper has explained how at least one hot model seems to describe the physical processes going on in clouds more accurately and with more predictive force than the more standard models
  • A new (controversial) review of paleoclimatology data indicates that contrary to what was thought an ECS of > 5 degrees may well be supported by the data.
 

Buster15

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On the very day that we learnt that our planet has warmed by +1.5C, Labour still seems to think that investing in a green economy is an optional extra.
Changing the way we live is essential and the announcement of the level of global warming should be a wake up call for everyone, including politicians.

It as if we still think that we only need to change the way we live if it doesn't inconvenience us. And if we have loads of time in which to do it.
We have been told that the UK is supposed to be the best place in the world to carry out changes to a so called Green Economy.
Utter rubbish.

Business and the people are crying out for leadership. But we have seen the government row back on its pledges such as that on EVs.
And now the opposition are doing the same thing.
It just goes to illustrate how short sighted and out of touch they all are.
Imbiciles.
 

4bars

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Lets enjoy 2024, it will be the coldest of the rest of our lives!
 

Murder on Zidane's Floor

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Making my way through this: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/08/energy-destinies-part-8-pathways.html

In 2023, the European Union called for international efforts to assess climate interventions, including solar radiation modification. This would include stratospheric aerosol injections involving a vehicle around 20 plus kilometres above the earth shooting out micron-sized particles to reflect sunlight. Other idea include thinning cirrus clouds to allow infrared radiation to escape and launching sunshades or giant mirrors in space to deflect solar radiation. The technology for these solutions does not currently exist. The risk of side effects, such as changing weather patterns, damaging the atmosphere and redistributing the impact of climate change across ecosystems, are unknown.

The general attitude is that technology can solve all the problems created by technology, ignoring mankind’s indifferent ability to truly understand, anticipate or control the side-effects.

Many promoters glibly choose to forget that the current problems are actually the result of technological innovation, such as the use of hydro-carbons and the internal combustion engine. As the chaos theorist, played by Jeff Goldblum muses in Steven Spielberg’s original Jurassic Park scientists preoccupied with theoretical possibilities are oblivious to whether they should do something that is feasible irrespective of the consequences.

Anybody who questions the faith or points out the nudity of scientific emperors is vilified as backwards and engaged in linear, non-futurist thinking. In a reversal of physicist Richard Feynman’s belief, most prefer answers that cannot be questioned rather than questions that cannot be answered.
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An energy divide within societies will emerge as a dangerous sub-set of inequality. As John Kenneth Galbraith observed in the Age of Uncertainty:

People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right.
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Societies will struggle to maintain cohesiveness and order as accumulated expectations prove beyond the reach of most.
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Bosnian_fan

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Murder on Zidane's Floor said:
Making my way through this: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/08/energy-destinies-part-8-pathways.html
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This is a good read. Thing is, science is in general attached to capitalism, it is one of its pillars. Well, not all science obviously. But science is looking for solutions on how to keep capitalism running, to keep living the way we do. Nobody is thinking on how life should be changed, how we should adapt our egos and wants and live more modest lives. Well, that wouldn't sit well with capitalism, so for current system, it is a no-go from the beginning.
 

Murder on Zidane's Floor

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Bosnian_fan said:
This is a good read. Thing is, science is in general attached to capitalism, it is one of its pillars. Well, not all science obviously. But science is looking for solutions on how to keep capitalism running, to keep living the way we do. Nobody is thinking on how life should be changed, how we should adapt our egos and wants and live more modest lives. Well, that wouldn't sit well with capitalism, so for current system, it is a no-go from the beginning.
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Yeah, the entire series is really good and NC is pretty spot on in their assessments of things.

Also read this passage here which I think aligns to my general worldview - in stark disagreement with some on here in the EV thread.

The Green New Deal and others who are seeking climate change action have done themselves and the planet a huge disservice via their rainbows and unicorns approach to policies. They have pointedly avoided the notion that sacrifices need to be made. The subtext is that if consumers merely make smarter choices, like buying EVs, using bicycles more often, installing heat pumps, insulating, and support investments like wind turbines and high speed trains, the worst will be forestalled. Admittedly, some do advocate more hair-shirt-y measures, like giving up on or reducing the consumption of beef, air travel, and indoor temperature control. Notice the huge hidden assumption: that consumers are well off enough to be able to make choices, as opposed to get by, and on top of that, they can afford higher costs, and/or to front big-ticket expenses that promise to offer a good return.

What the Green types have (as far as I can tell) chosen to ignore is the impact on livelihoods of aggressive climate change action. For instance, there’s a great deal of hand-wringing about Bitcoin energy consumption. Yet there’s a dearth of proposals to outlaw Bitcoin and severely criminalize its use. That seems to be due to bizarre deference to Mr. Market, as if speculation is more important than preserving the environment, along with perhaps a reluctance to throw people in the crypto sphere out of work. Similarly, no one is willing to very aggressively tax (say via super duper high landing fees) private jets so as to greatly reduce their use. Until the rich are willing to give up on their greenhouse gas spewing perk perks, it’s not hard to see why dull normals can be persuaded that climate change is a con.
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tenpoless

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Humanity has always been fecked regardless.
As cavemen we fought wild animals and got killed in the process (and had no clothes nor fire)
Then we had world wars killing each other and gave birth to some of the most evil beings ever.
We also had pandemic multiple times and transmitted disease to each other, effectively killing each other.
And now we have global warming, mercury poisoning and some smart greedy arses wanting to replace humans just because they can.
 

Buster15

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68206309

Perched on sea-ice off Canada's northern coast, parka-clad scientists watch saltwater pump out over the frozen ocean.

Their goal? To slow global warming.

As sea-ice vanishes, the dark ocean surface can absorb more of the Sun's energy, which accelerates warming. So the researchers want to thicken it to stop it melting away.

Seems like a pretty good and cheap idea to me.
 

MegadrivePerson

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Rio de Janeiro travel warning for UK tourists over 62C heatwave,

A popular holiday hotspot has issued an urgent heatwave health warning over searing hot 62C temperatures. Rio de Janeiro experiencing a record temperature of 62.3C in the neighbourhood of Guaratiba, and authorities have issued a health warning.

The heatwave has set new records with Rio de Janeiro’s heat index hitting 62.3 degrees Celsius (144.1 degrees Fahrenheit), the highest in a decade, weather authorities say. The heat index measures what a temperature feels like by taking into account humidity.

The actual maximum temperature in the city was 42C on Monday, the Rio Alert weather system said. Beachgoer Eduardo Alves de Castro said: "It is worrying because we wonder how far this is going, where it's heading. We are in a very privileged place, here in front of the beach, water, you cool off, but there are people in a much less favourable situation and who are much more impacted by this heatwave.
 

BD

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