World Is Finally Waking Up To Climate Change, Says 'Hothouse Earth' Author (theguardian.com) 354
The scorching temperatures and forest fires of this summer's heatwave have finally stirred the world to face the onrushing threat of global warming, claims the climate scientist behind the recent "hothouse Earth" report. Following an unprecedented 270,000 downloads of his study, Johan Rockstrom, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, said he had not seen such a surge of interest since 2007, the year the Nobel prize was awarded to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Guardian: "I think that in future people will look back on 2018 as the year when climate reality hit," said the veteran scientist. "This is the moment when people start to realize that global warming is not a problem for future generations, but for us now." The heatwave has dominated headlines across the northern hemisphere this summer. New temperature records have been set in Africa and cities in Australia, Taiwan, Georgia and the west coast of US. Heat stroke or forest fires have killed at least 119 in Japan, 29 in South Korea, 91 in Greece and nine in California. There have even been freak blazes in Lapland and elsewhere in the Arctic circle, while holidaymakers and locals alike have sweltered in unusually hot weather in southern Europe. Coming amid this climate chaos, the "hothouse Earth" paper by Rockstrom and his co-authors struck a chord with the public by spelling out the huge and growing risk that emissions are pushing the planet's climate off the path it has been on for 2.5m years.
Its about economics (Score:5, Insightful)
Many businesses don't care about the environment, unless there is a direct cost. They are either to busy trying to survive or serve the demands of the shareholders. Add to that, when a business is not looking beyond a 5 year schedule, then the impact of climate is also not a direct impact.
Now, tell them their customers are going elsewhere because the environmental image of a company is important, then they will wake up. Of course this only works when said corporation is not in a monopoly position.
In the US a number of companies have been pushing back amount trying to play nice in terms of the environment, which in the end will give the benefit to foreign corporations that have already adapted to the reality that being energy efficient for the customer is important. Short term US companies don't have to play nice, because the government has been helping keeping energy artificially cheap, so the end-user has no interest to buy appliances that consumer less resources. In most of the world people are paying the real cost for resources, so they have had to adapt.
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We always blame businesses & corporations for all of our problems, but their products and services are only a result of our consumption tastes.
We happily and eagerly spend money on their shiny-object crap which we don't really need, without thinking about all of the pollution created from obtaining, & refining natural resources, pollution from the factory, toxic chemicals used during manufacturing and cleaning of the final product that get dumped into lakes, rivers, oceans, then all of the packagin
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Now, tell them their customers are going elsewhere because the environmental image of a company is important, then they will wake up.
Sure, they'll hire an ad agency.
I remember Weyerhaeuser [goodjobsfirst.org] being in the news for an atrocious environmental record. And then I remember a bunch of Weyerhaeuser commercials with streams and green forests talking about how much they cared about the environment.
I'm guessing that was a lot cheaper than modifying their business practises.
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Well said.
Even more broadly, in the US we hear way more about the burden of new regulations rather than the benefits. Electric vehicles are a pretty good example of this - right now they're considered luxe and more expensive. But car manufacturers are actually worried that they'll be much less profitable (because it's fundamentally simpler to create and direct motion from electricity than combustion) and the operating and maintenance costs are much lower. By rights the public should be clamoring for elec
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I'll admit my arguments were based on observation and personal experience, but at the same time you didn't offer any counter evidence.
I'll provide a link to one study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
In terms of economics of consumption we can see how the drop in price of sugar helped drive the increase in the amount of sugar we eat: http://www.divineeatingout.com... [divineeatingout.com] . I mention this, because any time something is cheap we tend to consume more of it.
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printed out the papers, so they can look through it one and then throw it away?
They are sequestering carbon. If everyone prints out enough papers and tosses them in a landfill then we are removing carbon from the atmosphere.
I'm only half joking. The use of trees as carbon sinks, and then removing that carbon by burial, has been proposed by prominent climate scientists. The problem is the tree huggers that studied "international gender studies" in college instead of any real science. We could sequester a lot of carbon with proper management of forests. I don't mean by burying ream
You don't need a weather man... (Score:5, Insightful)
A small town in the mountain west I grew up in was known for having very cold winters. Starting about 10-15 years ago, when I would visit in the winter I noticed it wasn't as cold. Anytime I mentioned this to my friends and relatives that lived there, they would say, "yea, isn't it great!". A few times I was there in January it rained, and not a little. Raining in January in a town that historically had brutally cold winters(avg high temp would be below 32 F, avg low temps between 0 and 10 F). This town used to have avg summer temps of around 85 F, now the last few years the avg summer temps in the 90s.
I've seen all kinds of new plants showing up, new weeds, just in the past few years. I've been landscaping and gardening for a long time and I take note of the weeds I have to deal with. I've noticed how bird migrations are changing, and different birds are showing up in my town.
If you live in the western US you've noticed that in the last 10-15 years the climate has markedly heated up and dried up. What used to be arid or semi-arid is now turning into full on desert.
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Its worth remembering that most of Russias territory is cold and unproductive. A degree or two of warming and it becomes a potential breadbasket whilst the USA turns into a desert.
That would be great if it was true. However, the soil conditions won't allow for intensive agriculture.
We know that (Score:4, Insightful)
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Everyone knows that. Question is, who really cares among the powerful? Does a 72 year old business man, mired in scandals and in lobbies commitments, eager to succeed politically at all costs, having a single (short-term) objective in mind to that end: 'improve his economy'... don't expect this man to care about something likely happening in the future to the planet, even if the proof was as clear as 1+1 = 2.
Does this 72 year old man have grandchildren? If so then I suspect that this man does in fact care how "his" economy performs in the future.
I remember someone pointing out how many childless politicians there are around the world, all of them running up the national debt and living high on big government spending. They don't much care what happens after they are gone. Consider this the next time you have a chance to vote, does this candidate have grandchildren? Having children may not be enough because
Um... has this guy paid any attention to America? (Score:2)
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... and sadly, the 'other partys' plan to "fix climate change" was to sell "carbon credits" to big polluters, so they could pollute even more, but pay for the privilege.
I, too, would like to visit this alternate Earth.
So what can you do to help? (Score:5, Informative)
In terms of personal change, you can do a lot. You can eat less meat; meat consumption is a major driver of CO2 production and methane in the atmosphere https://skepticalscience.com/animal-agriculture-meat-global-warming.htm [skepticalscience.com]. You can also drive less, walk places or use public transit. If you need to buy a new car, try to buy a hybrid or an electric car. If you own a house, make sure it is well insulated; don't put the air conditioner on to any colder than you need to in the hot months, and don't heat it more than you need to during the winter. Consider buying solar panels for your house. All of these are things which not only help the environment, they save you money.
Politically, the primary thing you can do is either donate to or vote for candidates who support dealing with climate change. Much of Europe is doing the right things already regarding this (with the exception of Germany's really bad decision to turn off their nuclear plants). But both the US and Australia currently have governments who are substantially not helping matters. In the US, this means generally one should be voting for Democrats. While there are some Republicans who take climate change seriously like Christie Todd Whitman and Arnold Schwarzenegger they are a functional minority which has been pushed out of the party to a large extent.
The third thing you can do is directly donate to charitable causes which help with renewable energy or otherwise help with climate issues. Everybody Solar https://www.everybodysolar.org/ [everybodysolar.org] buys solar panels for non-profits like homeless shelters and science museums. The Solar Electric Light Fund https://www.self.org/ [self.org] gets solar panels for parts of the developing world; this not only helps the very poorest in the world, it also helps make sure that when Africa's economy comes more online they do so in a way that doesn't immediately involve massive CO2 production. For wind power, I recommend the New England Wind Fund https://www.massenergy.org/the-wind-fund [massenergy.org] which builds wind in the North East of the US (which currently has very little wind power and can definitely use more). Finally, in terms of immediate effects of CO2 offset per a dollar spent, Cool Earth is by many measures the most efficient way to do so https://www.coolearth.org/ [coolearth.org]. Remember, every little bit helps.
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I doubt that. It sounds like you're too self-centered to care about anybody but yourself (and your precious guns).
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It sounds like you're too self-centered
No. There's the agenda that the left wing uses to get itself re-elected. And then there's the one that they really pursue once they get into office. They are nowhere near the same.
If you want wind power, you'd better not try to put some up in the view of wealthy Democrats. Wealthy and heavily armed. Because when society collapses, you aren't going to camp on their view property either.
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It sounds like you're too self-centered to care about anybody but yourself (and your precious guns).
People can care about more than one thing, you know.
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Politically, the primary thing you can do is either donate to or vote for candidates who support dealing with climate change.
I would. But they are all preoccupied with taking my guns.
There are more guns in the US now, and it is easier to get guns than it ever was.
That is a ridiculous argument.
There are gun shows in my town all the time.
Everyone in town is armed...
Your guns aren't going to do much good when climate change has created food and water scarcity affecting billions of people.
Great, but: Too little too late? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll believe people are "waking up" when we get... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear power.
When I see new nuclear power plants getting built then I will believe that politicians and the public are taking global warming seriously. I have read some encouraging news recently that US federal regulators are making real investments in the future of nuclear power. There's already been a shift in how nuclear power is viewed, and people are starting to embrace it again. One real reason people are embracing it is very self serving, a lot of nuclear power plants are reaching end of life and will be shut down soon and without a new reactor in its place a lot of jobs will be lost as well as a large source of electrical generation capacity in that region.
I don't much care why people are embracing nuclear power, only that people embrace it. Nuclear power is safe, low carbon, domestically sourced, and inexpensive.
Say what you will about past accidents with nuclear power, like Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island, all of them are irrelevant to embracing third and fourth generation nuclear power. All of those past accidents were with second generation nuclear, and as safe as second generation nuclear power has been on the aggregate we will see even safer power with third generation nuclear that is being built now. Fourth generation nuclear, such as molten salt reactors, will be safer still.
I've seen the numbers and models on a national grid based on wind, water, and sun. This is not a future with inexpensive, reliable, and safe electricity. It's quite likely not low in CO2 either. There is no future with inexpensive, plentiful, safe, clean, and "green", electricity that does not include nuclear power.
Here's a couple websites that do the numbers:
http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co... [roadmaptonowhere.com]
http://withouthotair.com/ [withouthotair.com]
Re:People will accept nuclear power when... (Score:4, Interesting)
People will accept nuclear power when everyone advocating it move to within a few kilometers of a nuclear reactor and settle there, along with their entire family.
And yes, that includes you.
I do in fact live near a nuclear power plant. Like many across the USA it is scheduled for being shutdown in the next 10 years or so. Given how long it takes for the federal government to issue a license for building a new reactor we'll need to start planning for a replacement now.
I remember growing up during the Cold War and hearing people talk about how the local nuclear power plant was supposedly a secondary target for the Soviet nuclear missiles. Also nearby are vital dams for navigation and hydroelectric power, these were also secondary targets if not primary targets. In the local phone directories are evacuation plans in case of a meltdown at the power plant, and how the public would be notified of an emergency.
After growing up in the shadow of a nuclear power plant I do not fear nuclear power. What I fear more is a future without nuclear power.
Don't give me shit about "not in my backyard". I'd be quite pleased with a nuclear power plant in my back yard. Here's the problem I have, it's not the NIMBY crowd that bother me, it's the BANANA crowd. (That's "build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything" for the acronym impaired.) Every state in the USA has a nuclear energy commission of their own, let's put the states in charge of nuclear power instead of the federal government dictating this from afar. I don't want some "left coast" politician tell me that I can't have nuclear power in my backyard.
I suspect that given enough feet dragging by federal regulators that the states will in fact start to issue nuclear power licenses on their own. Some DC politician from some other state doesn't like this? Well, it's not in their backyard, why should they care?
No, they are not (Score:3)
So no, we are not improving. We have a long ways to go.
Re:Climate has never stayed constant (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, you're right!! Pumping enormous quantities of green house gases into the atmosphere couldn't possible cause any climate changes. I don't know why they call them green house gases in the first place...might have something to with causing extra warming. Please ignore the Arctic melting, the fire in Norway, the heat wave in Europe, the Sahara marching south, etc. Nothing to see here, move along.
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History has shown constant changes over time, often moving in cycles. We are currently in an interglacial. I know there are a lot of research funds and grant dollars riding on getting people to panic over this stuff, but please just stop.
I love how blatantly stupid, biased bullshit gets modded as "informative", presumably because it matches peoples "worldview".
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We all know it rains from time to time. But if I were to hose you down with a fire hose. You are not going to just sit there and say it is just the weather, when there was someone actually causing the problem of getting wet.
The climate does change. But not at this rate, The reasons for the change are pointing to human activity.
What would be the benefit of people panicking over climate change? For politicians on both sides not worrying about climate change would make their jobs easier, want to subdue a po
Re:Climate has never stayed constant (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it has been changing. But if you can look at that and aren't the least bit alarmed, I'm not sure anything is going to ever get through.
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...I'm not sure anything is going to ever get through.
I'm damn sure nothing is going to get through in the 'alternative fact" era.
Science has a pretty good record (Score:4, Insightful)
The question is, which one is the alternative fact? Is it their's or your's?
I'd go with the scientists, the ones with massive amounts of data and observations and well-verified models that have been vetted and analyzed and compared to observations for over fifty years, as the ones likely to be correct, rather than the ones that say "I don't trust science, I'm sure they're wrong, and we don't need any actual data or analysis or alternate hypotheses."
Science has a pretty good record that way.
Re:Science has a pretty good record (Score:4, Insightful)
They're not saying it because it would be fucking stupid to say it. They are, however, choosing to behave in a way that's consistent with not trusting science though. They don't believe that climate change is a serious problem and caused by humans requiring humans to address what we're doing. And they don't trust vaccinations.
Re:Science has a pretty good record (Score:4, Interesting)
Why are you using two different sources for comparison of terminology?
I mean you are just mixing units here and making you look like an idiot.
Re:Science has a pretty good record (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Science has a pretty good record (Score:5, Insightful)
Plenty of people are saying they don't trust vested interests, eugenics-loving globalists who want us all to stop reproducing and consuming.
Yeah, I'm sure it's those vested interests and not the global energy and manufacturing industries.
Re:Science has a pretty good record (Score:5, Insightful)
And more so: How many predictions were actually coming true and not being reported by the Drudge report? If you dig into ten thousands of papers, you might get 100,000 predictions, and of them, just 110 didn't come true the way the authors of Drudge Report would like to have them being true. This would give a success rate close to 99 percent. Yeah for Science!
And finally: Does the article even exist?
Anonymous coward (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure why you bothered to respond. However, for predictions, I posted this to a different subthread:
Here's an article from Forbes about the very first Global Climate Model, Manabe and Wetherald 1967, looking back at how well their predictions from fifty years ago compared to data: https://www.forbes.com/sites/s... [forbes.com]
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Interesting that for many of those "failed" predictions, the evaluation date for the prediction is still well in the future. You cannot make a pass/fail judgement in 2014 for a prediction of what is going to happen by 2050. Others look as if they take sensationalist press and consider that to be a prediction.
Drudge Report has a vested interest in calling this all bunk, and their list reflects that. If you really want to validate predictions, science is generally pretty good at that - take a look at the m
Data matches observations (Score:5, Informative)
well-verified models that have been vetted and analyzed
The models have consistently over-predicted temperatures.
to the contrary, the models have fit the data to well within confidence limits, and continue to do so.
Here's an article from Forbes about the very first Global Climate Model, Manabe and Wetherald 1967, looking back at how well their predictions from fifty years ago compared to data: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/03/15/the-first-climate-model-turns-50-and-predicted-global-warming-almost-perfectly/ [forbes.com]
And here are graphs, showing that the prediction from fifty years ago (red line) fits the data (blue line) almost exactly. https://climategraphs.wordpres... [wordpress.com]
Later models have refined Manabe and Wetherald 1967, incorporating other effects than simply carbon dioxide and water vapor, but haven't changed the answer. Here is the Berkeley Earth [berkeleyearth.org] page comparing climate models used in the IPCC report against data: http://berkeleyearth.org/graph... [berkeleyearth.org]
The problem with the deniers, on the other hand, is that they don't have a prediction. They don't have an alternative model, they don't have anything.
Re:Data matches observations (Score:4, Insightful)
well-verified models that have been vetted and analyzed
The models have consistently over-predicted temperatures.
to the contrary, the models have fit the data to well within confidence limits, and continue to do so.
(links [1] [forbes.com] [2] [wordpress.com] [3] [berkeleyearth.org] [4] [www.ipcc.ch])
False. They don't even fit the "adjusted" data very well.
This is the typical way deniers argue: I post a links to data, and the deniers simply deny. That's it, no data, no nothing. Whatever it is, just deny it.
That's why they're called deniers. If they had any actual information, they'd be skeptics, but the deniers don't even care about actual information. Whatever it is, they'll just deny it.
Re:Science has a pretty good record (Score:4, Funny)
That's right, there is a huge multinational conspiracy of life long academics with tenure all hell bent on oppressing you by forcing more fuel efficient vehicles on you! And you saw through it all! Keep it up QAnon, you are doing God's work!
Also, know how I know you watch fox news? Climategate.
Another Factor... (Score:4, Informative)
https://wattsupwiththat.com/20... [wattsupwiththat.com]
Re: Climate has never stayed constant (Score:4, Interesting)
Ummm, no.
We can measure with modern tools, the changes. The "fluctuations" as you term them, are data. With data, you can predict with reasonable certainty.
Over 100,000 scientists, WITH THAT DATA, have agreed on the outcome, given long history, and your "fluctuations".
If you're not alarmed, you're either ignoring the data, or your stupid.
Re: Climate has never stayed constant (Score:5, Insightful)
It's certainly more likely to be science than the bletherings of 100,000 non-scientist fuckwits with financial and psychological interests in the status quo.
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A common mistake is comparing destitute sheep (post WW1) with people that are trained to think for a living. Hitler was able to rally people (bad shepherd problem) and convince them of false rubrics. The sheep followed the false rubrics, believing they were empowered.
Does this sound a lot like modern politics?
Many different groups analyzing the data (Score:5, Informative)
How can it be taken seriously when they are constantly changing the historical temperature data to match their hypothesis?
"They" are not "changing the historical temperature data to match their hypothesis". That is a made-up alternate-fact being promulgated by the deniers.
You are referring, I assume to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies [nasa.gov] historical temperature record. The analysis of the data is exhaustively documented [nasa.gov] , including a FAQ [nasa.gov] giving an overview for popular audiences that are too bored to read the actual documentation. And the original data set, and all of previous historical analyses, are available on the web, showing that the changes in analysis technique don't alter the conclusion that the climate is warming. Here [slashdot.org], for example, are the graphs showing the results of every different correction to the analysis, dating back to 1981.
In any case, you do know that several other groups, such at BEST [berkeleyearth.org], also analyze historical climate data, and come out with rates of warming that are essentially the same. [carbonbrief.org] So your conspiracy theory that scientists are altering their data in order to hoax the public is going to be a conspiracy of hundreds, and probably thousands, of scientists in independent groups on three different continents.
history is here (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Really forest fires? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually its the opposite. California stopped most logging and forest management activities decades ago at he behest of environmentalists. These fires are a result of that lack of management.
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Re:Really forest fires? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually its the opposite. California stopped most logging and forest management activities decades ago at he behest of environmentalists. These fires are a result of that lack of management.
I understand that black and white/0-1 answers are easier to deal with. However I would encourage you to try to have a more nuanced and well researched view of the situation.
I agree that part of the issue is the lack of management, another important factor is that fires haven't been allowed to burn in many of these areas because there are now lots of people, and lots of homes in those forests.
Another major factor is that in the western US the climate is heating up and drying up. This negatively impacts the health of the forests, and when fires do start, they are worse, and the forests are primed for burning.
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Another major factor is that in the western US the climate is heating up and drying up. This negatively impacts the health of the forests
And yet climate scientists think it's valid to use increased tree ring growth as a proxy for rising temperatures.
Re:Really forest fires? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're welcome to hire commercial loggers to come in and clear out the underbrush and small trees. You won't get anyone to do it, because they want to haul out the tallest, largest diameter wood that they can get their hands on, and leave that nuisance non-commercial crap behind, but you're welcome to try.
Of course, just like the wood that you throw in your fireplace, the big stuff doesn't burn without a lot of kindling around it. The small stuff burns like gangbusters. So there's no reason to take out the tallest, largest diameter wood absent the nuisance non-commercial crap, and there's nobody who wants to deal with the nuisance non-commercial crap to begin with, much less without the big stuff.
"Lack of management" my ass.
Re:Really forest fires? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Really forest fires? (Score:5, Insightful)
Throw in entire forested areas where the mature trees have been killed by invasive beetles & turned into bone-dry kindling, a century of forest-fire prevention policy of fighting every forest fire, thus stopping nature from doing it's own 'controlled burns' to burn up small areas of old dry growth, and large-scale clear-cutting that dries out nearby forested areas, well of course forest fires will become more common.
Re:Really forest fires? (Score:5, Insightful)
The same goes with flooding: the reason flooding seems to be getting worse is due to the destruction of marshlands and buffer areas and building hardscape surfaces on coastal areas. It has nothing to do with "rising sea levels" or anything else. You can't destroy the local environment and expect things to remain the same.
Whereas flooding IS made much worse nowadays compared to the past by the reasons you state above there is no reason to put "rising sea levels" in quotes. This is a known phenomenon. Even if you don't believe in global warming for whatever reason, sea levels are very accurately measured by satellites and unless all the global space agencies are conspiring to lie about sea levels*; sea level rising is a fact.
Coupled with sea level rising though, and perhaps a much bigger problem in most places is the fact that many coastal cities are sinking. With ground water being pumped out it causes subsidence- many cities are sinking at a much faster rate than sea level is rising.
* Which probably is more believable than believing global warming is fake- but still absurd.
Re:Really forest fires? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Both.
There are many factors involved. One is increased summer temperature (and concommitant drier forests) due to climate change.
Not the only factor. But one factor.
Yes, it really is THAT simple.
Few things are simple.
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One factor (Score:2)
It is, however, not the only factor.
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No, it really IS that simple. Local environmental destruction is causing forest fires and flooding. But you can't write a paper about that, and no one is going to address it, so it is ignored. What do you think happens to water if you have no buffer lands to keep it contained?
Actually it isn't that simple.
In a perfect world, answers to big problems are simple.
We don't live in that world.
Do yourself a favor and research and read about how the heating and drying of the climate in the western US are impacting forests. Read about the damage beetles have done to western forests, and why those beetle infestations are happening.
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The increase of forest fires is due to humans moving into forested areas and starting fires (inadvertently or on purpose). Yes, it really is THAT simple.
Well, you know, there's also climate change disrupting weather patterns causing warmer, drier air that both increases the likelihood of fire starting but also helps spread them. This is why fires in places that normally get fires are getting worse, and places that don't normally get fires are starting to see them.
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The increase of forest fires is due to humans moving into forested areas and starting fires (inadvertently or on purpose). Yes, it really is THAT simple.
Incorrect... The cause of forest fires changes depending on location. In North-West Canada, the current forest fires are almost all caused by lightning. Where climate change comes into play is that in the previous decade, temperatures never really dropped in the winter. Because of this, the population of pine beetles exploded and killed all the trees. Entire forests turned red / brown in the course of a few years. Now 10 years later, those trees have dried out and are the perfect fuel for lightning st
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That is total BS. If you look at where forest fires start it is in areas populated by humans.
Seem to be all over the place: https://fsapps.nwcg.gov/google... [nwcg.gov]
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Re:Really forest fires? (Score:4, Informative)
intensity of forest fires are the result of decades of misguided policy of preventing all forest fires
Locally, yes, it certainly doesn't help. When fires are up in isolated arctic wildernesses, that's something else.
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Here we go again with the lazy dismissals.
Global weather is very much climate.
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Yeah, you get rich by telling people that they're doomed if they continue to fuck up.
Re:The link between science and the fires is money (Score:5, Insightful)
Plenty of scientists are saying there is not a scientific link between the fires and climate change, even Vox ran a story with that.
Maybe they should go talk to the experienced firefighters that say that fire is behaving in ways they have never seen before. Things are changing and barring ALIENS! the only reasonable explanation is climate change, which we know to be occurring.
Denialists have now shifted from "there is no climate change" to "it's not our fault and anyway it's not causing any problems", and are now moving into "well even if it is our fault there's nothing we can do about it". You are behind even for a denialist.
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They're WAY ahead of you on this one.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/1001356/alien-spaceship-bermuda-triangle-discovery-channel [express.co.uk]
Re:The link between science and the fires is money (Score:5, Interesting)
Plenty of scientists are saying there is not a scientific link between the fires and climate change, even Vox ran a story with that.
Maybe they should go talk to the experienced firefighters that say that fire is behaving in ways they have never seen before. Things are changing and barring ALIENS! the only reasonable explanation is climate change...
Surprisingly, Aliens or climate change aren't the only possible explanations. I know, hard to believe but hear me out.
It's beginning to be widely accepted that fighting forest fires has contributed to making the big ones worse. When we stop small forest fires, that means dead fall and dried planet matter continue to accumulate. It turns out, larger trees used to survive small forest fires, and the smaller fires cleared out the dead fall and dried material. With us stopping those fires though, enough tinder is accumulating that when a fire does hit, it's bigger, stronger and worse than ever before.
I know, citation please, so here's [theweathernetwork.com] a fire forest researcher from UBC from a region of Canada where we fight multiple forest fires every year saying the same thing.
Before you get too sad though, there is a silver lining. The faculty member mentions that changing forest fire management might be opposed by standard logging industry practices, so we can still hate on corporate/industrial causes for the problem, hurray!
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Ah, so we have arrived at step 3 already? Wow, didn't take long.
I'd guess step 4 is due in about 2-3 years, then?
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The rate of change is important, and it can be seen that since industrial age the rate is increasing. Of course, population is a factor as well, because more people consume more ruminant products (meat, cowmilk, ...), and the animals produce methane which is a factor for global warming. We better use the handbrake now, after living in ignorance for so long. It is not really important if humans are guilty for global warming, we have to to ehatever we can to stop it. This is possible without living in caves.
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Let me think about why I might not give a shit about the climate changing 100m years ago and the climate changing today. Oh yes! I'm alive today, and dependent on a complex and fragile civilisation, along with the rest of humanity.
Christ but you people are stupid
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These forested areas are now developed with larger numbers of residences, there has been concerted effort to keep fires, which normally would have happened anyway, from happening.
The persistent drought conditions in the west and the heating up of the atmosphere have led to many forested areas being dried out, and the health of the forests lessened. The bark beetle infestation has taken its toll, due to warmer winte
Re:Any solution will be technological (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Any solution will be technological (Score:4, Insightful)
Nuclear instead of coal.
Re:Any solution will be technological (Score:4, Insightful)
The threat of stone-age living is a common strawman employed by climate denialists and climate policy obstructionists. The idea is that stone-age living would be less carbon-intensive than modern living, therefore it could be a solution to climate change, therefore it's what imaginary environmentalists are proposing.
Of course the actual solutions to climate change involve greater technology and greater access to the products of energy use through better efficiency.
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Stone age living? Yeah, it's horrible that you might have to drive in a car instead of a land cruiser when you go pick up your mail, teh horrorz of stone age transportation!
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Any solution will be technological;
Wow, at least the deniers finally acknowledge that it's actually real, and might be a problem. It's a start.
it will not be ham fisted attempts to force stone age living on the hoi polloi. (Notice that the elites like Al Gore never do the stone age living thing anyway. That's for you plebes.)
I don't have any idea why the deniers continue to shout over and over again that anybody who says that this is a problem are trying to "force stone-age living on the hoi polloi". I've never actually heard any climate scientists-- you know, the people who noticed that this was a problem that might need solution fifty fucking years ago-- say that, or anything like that.
Yes, I do think solutions will b
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Any solution will be technological; it will not be ham fisted attempts to force stone age living on the hoi polloi.
(Notice that the elites like Al Gore never do the stone age living thing anyway. That's for you plebes.)
Perhaps you should do some research on the technologies that have emerged in the last few years.
New developments in solar, geo-thermal and wind energy.
New insulation techniques and technologies.
New transportation technologies.
As some leaders(and many people) have been saying for the last 20 years, this is a huge business opportunity.
However the entrenched carbon extraction lobby has fought the change to the bloody end, to the detriment of all.
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Now that it's too late, we're starting to witness the results first hand, and there's no way to mitigate it without 100x the effort than it would have taken before (assuming it even CAN be mitigated...), what better time to accept that it's actually happening?
Climate change due to anthropogenic global warming is a long term problem. It does not happen overnight. It will require a long term solution. It will not be solved overnight.
Re:Of course they are (Score:5, Insightful)
What's happening? Jack shit is happening. A bunch of people finally woke up and noticed that we're fucked. But hey, since we're fucked, why bother trying to do anything? It's just so simple, no matter where you are in the realization chain, you can simply continue as usual with no reason to change your behaviour.
At first it's "there is no climate change" so there is no reason to do anything.
Then, when it's no longer possible to deny it, it's "well, climate has always changed", and since that's still nothing that I could possibly be blamed for, no reason to change anything.
Then we get to "well, we do affect it, but it's not gonna have any impact" which again gives you no reason to change anything,
only to finally arrive at "well, we did fuck up, but now it's too late anyway", which again is no reason to do anything since you can't do anything anyway anymore.
Ain't it great? No matter where we are in the climate change timeline, we have no reason to stop fucking the planet.
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You could get off your ass and do something, too, if you really wanted to. It sounds like you're just making excuses for yourself.
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Speak for yourself. Me and my family are doing everything we can to lower our energy and plastic consumption. You could get off your ass and do something, too, if you really wanted to. It sounds like you're just making excuses for yourself.
I agree, though with the recent revelations about recycling, it seems to be a losing battle, and that we need a different method of dealing with waste products. I remember years ago hearing about a guy who invented a "refinery" of sorts to recycle ALL refuse in garbage dumps. So instead of all this extra work we do to recycle, it all goes into the dump, then gets ground up and "recycled" on an industrial scale at one location.
No extra recycle truck pickups, no extra recycle facilities with people sorti
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I remember that the process ended up with three categories:
1. metals 2. compost like materials from the paper and food waste 3. various refined carbon fuels, which is where the "refinery" part of the facility happens. All the plastics are essentially refined/recycled back to another form of usable fuels of some kind.
I remember the proof of concept plant they built to test this was in Missouri.
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Let's be honest here, it's not like anything is gonna change with the discussion here. You'll have two sides yell at each other and the ones they're trying to convince stopped caring either way a long time ago.
It's a bit like US politics, now that I think about it.
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I don't buy food in plastic, whenever possible.
I don't use plastic bags.
I ride my bike or walk, when possible. When not possible, I drive a high MPG small car.
I recycle aggressively.
I keep my house thermostat at 80 degrees, when AC is necessary.
I fix things instead of buying new things, whenever possible.
Go fuck yourself, troll.
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I keep my house thermostat at 80 degrees, when AC is necessary.
Ceiling fans work wonders.
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Absolutely, they do. Along with some strategically opened windows, too, when possible.
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Shut up, Kiwi, Europe is about to cook off.
Let's talk in February, ok?
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But, we've had the hottest years on record just about every year the last decade or so. I think this year is going to be somewhat cooler and just the 4th hottest year on record.
Weather is what we see, but it's those changes over time that are ultimately critical. One year of extreme weather in either direction wouldn't be climate change, but the fact that we're seeing this all over the world and year after year ought to be something of great concern to anybody not planning on dying in the next few years.