Melting Permafrost In Arctic Will Have $70 Trillion Climate Impact, Study Says (theguardian.com) 408
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The release of methane and carbon dioxide from thawing permafrost will accelerate global warming and add up to $70 trillion to the world's climate bill, according to the most advanced study yet of the economic consequences of a melting Arctic. If countries fail to improve on their Paris agreement commitments, this feedback mechanism, combined with a loss of heat-deflecting white ice, will cause a near 5% amplification of global warming and its associated costs, says the paper, which was published on Tuesday in Nature Communications.
The authors say their study is the first to calculate the economic impact of permafrost melt and reduced albedo -- a measure of how much light that hits a surface is reflected without being absorbed -- based on the most advanced computer models of what is likely to happen in the Arctic as temperatures rise. It shows how destabilized natural systems will worsen the problem caused by man-made emissions, making it more difficult and expensive to solve. They assessed known stocks of frozen organic matter in the ground up to 3 meters deep at multiple points across the Arctic. These were run through the world's most advanced simulation software in the US and at the UK Met Office to predict how much gas will be released at different levels of warming. Even with supercomputers, the number crunching took weeks because the vast geography and complex climate interactions of the Arctic throw up multiple variables. The researchers then applied previous economic impact models to assess the likely costs. Permafrost melt is the main concern because of all the carbon trapped in the frozen ground. "On the current trajectory of at least 3C of warming by the end of the century, melting permafrost is expected to discharge up to 280 gigatons of carbon dioxide and 3 gigatons of methane, which has a climate effect that is 10 to 20 times stronger than CO2," the report says.
"This would increase the global climate-driven impacts by by $70 trillion between now and 2300. This is 10 times higher than the projected benefits from a melting Arctic, such as easier navigation for ships and access to minerals, says the paper."
The authors say their study is the first to calculate the economic impact of permafrost melt and reduced albedo -- a measure of how much light that hits a surface is reflected without being absorbed -- based on the most advanced computer models of what is likely to happen in the Arctic as temperatures rise. It shows how destabilized natural systems will worsen the problem caused by man-made emissions, making it more difficult and expensive to solve. They assessed known stocks of frozen organic matter in the ground up to 3 meters deep at multiple points across the Arctic. These were run through the world's most advanced simulation software in the US and at the UK Met Office to predict how much gas will be released at different levels of warming. Even with supercomputers, the number crunching took weeks because the vast geography and complex climate interactions of the Arctic throw up multiple variables. The researchers then applied previous economic impact models to assess the likely costs. Permafrost melt is the main concern because of all the carbon trapped in the frozen ground. "On the current trajectory of at least 3C of warming by the end of the century, melting permafrost is expected to discharge up to 280 gigatons of carbon dioxide and 3 gigatons of methane, which has a climate effect that is 10 to 20 times stronger than CO2," the report says.
"This would increase the global climate-driven impacts by by $70 trillion between now and 2300. This is 10 times higher than the projected benefits from a melting Arctic, such as easier navigation for ships and access to minerals, says the paper."
That's the more direct costs. (Score:5, Insightful)
Start going a little further, and releasing some of those old ocean trapped hydrocarbons (Methane clathrate)... also known as the cause of at least two of the biggest known extinction events.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
That would make even 70 trillion look like small potatoes.
Then, it's not a question of which at risk species go extinct - which is most of them anyway without warming - but which ecosystems continue to exist in a recognizable form.
Don't get me wrong - the planet would survive, it's had these events, and likely humans would find some way of making it through such an event - it's just such a pointless experiment to put your world through when you have a choice.
Ryan Fenton
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The methane is from decomposed plant-life correct? Then at some point its fair to assume life thrived there without the ice. How difficult would it be to capture the trapped methane before its release and process it as either a fuel source (carbon dioxide being less of a greenhouse catalyst than methane) or convert it into a butane-like compound we currently use for environment friendly refrigerants? Ice melting doesn't concern me as much as the methane. CO2 has a natural correction in that areas where ice
Re: The sky is still falling (Score:5, Informative)
Go look up the pause in GW. Been going on for 15+ years now and really quite embarrassing
What pause ?
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gis... [nasa.gov]
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Plenty of articles that suggested scientist could not explain why global temps did not increase for a decade when co2 levels kept riding at the same rate. This suggests that its not a linear relationship and all the factors of the equation are not yet known. Many were discussed on this very forum. Its not an issue of whether or not there is correlation. It is whether we know the equation well enough to accurately predict the consequences of deliberate tampering. We don’t want a ‘fix’ to ov
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human CO2 emissions, deforestation, agriculture, and other human activities did have an appreciable effect on the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, regardless of the fact that humans are having a greater effect now.
Re: The sky is still falling (Score:2)
Yeah, and that massive coral bleaching thing that killed millions of years of coral growth in one summer... NOTHING TO SEE HERE
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/11/next-generation-may-never-see-coral-reefs
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Go look up the pause in GW. Been going on for 15+ years now and really quite embarrassing
I feel for you man. I'd be embarrassed too to write that sentence.
Re: The sky is still falling (Score:4, Insightful)
Take it up with the anthropologists.
Your observation is fundamentally irrelevant to the physics profession.
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The West has long had an apocalypse fetish - there's even a book in the Bible with that title. People seem to have the need to believe that they're living in end times.
Please, oh Potor, share some quotes with us from the book of Apocalypse.
Can we have some nuclear power now? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow, that's a lot of money. Sure would be nice if we had a power source that is reliable, inexpensive, exceedingly safe, and produces near zero CO2 emissions in the process. You know, like nuclear power but not nuclear power. Because nuclear power is bad, for reasons.
Or maybe nuclear power isn't all that bad. We have France that discovered a way to produce a very large percentage of it's electricity with nuclear power. And they did that decades ago. Germany, UK, and so many other nations tried and failed to use wind and solar as replacements for coal and natural gas. If this was such a success then why is Russia building more natural gas lines into western Europe right now? Shouldn't cheap wind and solar energy make this unnecessary?
Oh, but what about Chernobyl? And Fukushima? Those were reactors built in the 1970s, and we learned a few things since then.
If we can't have nuclear power then we are just waiting for the global warming to kill us all. We can't build enough windmills and solar collectors in the time we have left to stop global warming. We just cannot. At least not without greater damage to the economy than what global warming would cause.
Make your choice, it's nuclear power or bad things happen.
I'm waiting for your answer.
Re:Can we have some nuclear power now? (Score:5, Interesting)
We'll get our nuclear power when the hippies that keep propping up the global warming bogeyman grow up or, as Bill Nye put it, "age out".
We are finally seeing the US federal government issue licenses for nuclear power experimentation. The problem is not a lack of funding, it's a lack of permits. The government has been under control of anti-nuclear politicians for too long. When we get these near senile congress critters to leave office I expect to see a renewed interest in nuclear power.
For people that seem to be so frightened of global warming this fear of nuclear power seems quite nonsensical. That is unless one realizes that if nuclear power gains any kind of foothold then the global warming threat evaporates. There is no threat of global warming after that, at least not from human activity. Anyone that brings it up after that just made the case for another dozen nuclear power plants to get built.
What will politicians use as a bogeyman to funnel money into their districts if we solve the problem of global warming? They don't want to solve this problem, they want to drag this out as long as they are in office. If they were serious about solving this then they'd have solved it by now. This is not a difficult problem to solve. We know the answer. The politicians simply will not allow us to have it.
Re:Can we have some nuclear power now? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, its anti nuke kooks like you that have caused the problems. If you smelly hippies would have kept your bong holes shut and actually studied the problem we wouldn't be in this predicament to start with. Even with the few nuclear accidents that we have had, nuclear still has a better safety record than any major power generation system we have in place.
If you anti nuke kooks would have been part of the solution then Fukushima never would have happened. Fukushima was a decades old design. With out the anti nuke kooks that reactor would have been phased out and already replaced. So, in essence, Fukushima is your fault.
Even the worse nuclear accident in history, Chernobyl, is turning out to not be as bad as people thought it was. It may be 20,000 years before its back to "safe" radiation levels but the area is already showing signs of recovery. Local wildlife is thriving due to the lack of human competition.
Re:Can we have some nuclear power now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, but what about Chernobyl? And Fukushima? Those were reactors built in the 1970s, and we learned a few things since then.
IIRC, only a handful of people are dead due to nuclear radiation in the Fukushima incident. Most people were killed by the tsunami itself. I've also read that thousands were killed due to the panic of evacuation in the radiation zones; the radiation levels in those zones are lower than the natural background radiation in some populated areas here in Finland.
We can call ourselves "learned" when we stop panicking over "nukular" and start looking at the facts. Nuclear is by far the safest way to produce electricity, when looking at deaths per energy output.
Re:Nuclear power won't fix global warming (Score:5, Interesting)
The total primary energy supply - all the energy we generate - is around 18 TW. If all of it was from coal, gas, and nuclear, that's how much heat we'd be adding to the globe. That's tiny relative to irradiance from the sun, which is 173,000 TW, or even from the earth itself (47 TW), but it might eventually have a measurable effect on the global equilibrium, which of course in a stable climate would average out around zero.
Rather more of an issue is the net energy imbalance from anthropogenic greenhouse gases, which is around 300 TW. This is enough to have a clearly measurable effect, currently raising global surface temperatures by 0.18 C/decade. Let's worry about that first, and deal with waste heat when our global energy use is an order of magnitude higher.
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solar energy striking earth = 164 MW per square kilometer over a 24 hour day. All of that is reradiated as IR.
surface area of earth = 510 million square km
You do the math.
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Nuclear power won't stop global warming. Think about it. You're converting mass into energy using nuclear technology. More energy is being released into the environment when you bring more nuclear power plants online. ALL energy use eventually devolves into low grade waste heat as the final energy conversion. That means global warming!
I really hope this is satire. Its completely and stupidly wrong on a global scale. Your physics teacher just hung his head in shame for having anything to do with someone who could mess up a calculation by probably 6 order of magnitude.
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I really hope this is satire. Its completely and stupidly wrong on a global scale. Your physics teacher just hung his head in shame for having anything to do with someone who could mess up a calculation by probably 6 order of magnitude.
The error is about 1 order of magnitude, go hang your head in shame.
Greenhouse effect adds about 300 TW of warming. Global energy consumption is about 18 TW. Add a bunch of waste heat, and you're looking at a factor of 5-10 difference.
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Sorry, the amount of heat we generate is completely irrelevant. What matters is the equilibrium temperature as defined by the sun+atmosphere composition. The Earth radiates far more heat than that little bit humans generate (~173,000TW).
And how much would the equilibrium temperature need to rise to make the Earth radiate 173050 TW instead ?
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nearly ALL of that becomes waste-heat. only light from lamps escaping the earth doesn't become waste-heat.
I know. I was talking about the additional waste heat that is generated in order to produce 18 TW of useful energy.
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As alarming as this post was, I'm more concerned with the number of people that moded this up as insightful. I have always thought our understanding of the laws of physics was higher.
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To the extent they're shiny and reflective, they're terrible at collecting solar power. So I would guess that solar cells lower the albedo.
Global warming-oriented investment funds (Score:5, Interesting)
(To clarify: anthropogenic global warming is certainly real and definitely going to have net negative effects on humanity... I just feel that the doom stories have met diminishing returns and stories with other tones might accomplish more.)
For instance: has anyone made a global warming oriented long term investment fund? Surely global warming is going to have a positive effect on some industries and some pieces of real estate. At the risk of creating some perverse incentives, why not start putting together funds that track these industries and buy up these pieces of real estate? All sorts of foundations and rich celebs might invest in such funds ("I hope I lose money", etc.) At the very least, we could get places like the Wall Street Journal talking about climate change more frequently.
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I just feel that the doom stories have met diminishing returns and stories with other tones might accomplish more
For those that are inclined to ignore climate change, a mild story will only strengthen their belief that nothing needs to be done right now. Besides, such stories don't sell clicks, which is the most important goal.
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It isn't necessarily about being a "mild" story. It's about stories being written in a manner that doesn't sound like a persuasive piece. Even if the truth is that the outcome really is going to be 95% bad news for humans, it still comes off as propaganda to those people who are alr
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Do you realize how much that sounds like the start of a sermon in order to 'save your soul'?
Don't keep me in suspense. How much ?
Re:Global warming-oriented investment funds (Score:4, Interesting)
Is anyone else waiting impatiently for the non-hand-wringing stories to start appearing? I think it might turn more heads and perhaps even convince more skeptics if journalists could find stories that have more to them beyond "oh noes, global warming is gonna cause something bad to happen unless we stop it."
(To clarify: anthropogenic global warming is certainly real and definitely going to have net negative effects on humanity... I just feel that the doom stories have met diminishing returns and stories with other tones might accomplish more.)
For instance: has anyone made a global warming oriented long term investment fund? Surely global warming is going to have a positive effect on some industries and some pieces of real estate. At the risk of creating some perverse incentives, why not start putting together funds that track these industries and buy up these pieces of real estate? All sorts of foundations and rich celebs might invest in such funds ("I hope I lose money", etc.) At the very least, we could get places like the Wall Street Journal talking about climate change more frequently.
Well non-coastal cities will do well. Some northern latitudes may improve but the shifting climate patterns will screw with the eco-systems. Low-emission and emission free power sources will do well, which is why energy companies of all kinds are pumping a lot of R&D money into them.
Of course the clearest effect now is insurance companies backing away from policies that cover coastal flooding. And ocean front properties don't cost what they used to [forbes.com]. Of course there's a lot of confounders with property valuation but that seems to indicate they've dipped relative to other premium real estate.
Re:Global warming-oriented investment funds (Score:5, Interesting)
Is anyone else waiting impatiently for the non-hand-wringing stories to start appearing?
I'm looking for solutions instead of more articles explaining the problem.
When I speak of solutions I mean things that can be deployed on a meaningful scale in a meaningful time frame. Articles on electric airplanes are cute but we know they aren't going to be even close to replacing the airplanes we have today for something like 30 years. If Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is correct we have only 12 years to solve this. Can we build enough windmills, solar collectors, and electric airplanes by then? Not likely, especially when they depend on technologies that exist only in laboratory experiments right now.
We know how to solve this but no one dares mention the obvious solution. Because nuclear power is scary.
Oops, did I just mention the unmentionable?
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We can't build nuclear power in 12 years either, especially not if you're not just aiming to take over current electricity but also want to run hydrocarbon generators for all transportation.
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We can't build nuclear power in 12 years either
We can't? Boy oh boy. What about all those type A & B(Gen 2 and Gen 2.5) CANDU reactors(approx 830MW per reactor, 4 reactors total) that went from starting construction to producing power in 6 years?
We absolutely can if we want to. The problem is that despite the doom criers of the environmentalist movement of "it's really really bad! Really bad!" for the last 45 years(really 'guv it's really really really bad now!). It's those same people making those claims also blocking the construction of new re
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There's a huge gap between building a few reactors, and supplying/distributing all our energy needs, including transportation fuels.
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There's a huge gap between building a few reactors, and supplying/distributing all our energy needs, including transportation fuels.
No there actually isn't. See, those 4 reactors I mentioned are part of a complex at the 2nd largest nuclear power station in the world. Doing a pretty good job at it too. The grids already exist in say north america, so do the inner-connects. And HVDC is being used to fill the gaps between high production and no production areas. Europe is oh 20 years behind us on that, they're still working on placement of HVDC segments.
The reality is, if you want to 'do away with' combustion engines then you need to
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No there actually isn't. See, those 4 reactors I mentioned are part of a complex at the 2nd largest nuclear power station in the world
You don't see the problem with scale ? If we ask the supplier not to build 4 reactors, but 4000, you don't think that the lead time is going to be longer ?
Europe is oh 20 years behind us on that, they're still working on placement of HVDC segments.
If the infrastructure only takes 12 years to build, how can anyone be 20 years behind ?
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Also, goddamn Bill Clinton dragged the Democrats into the center and that's still where their head is at. Even as the SJWs are doing their thing, there's very little talk about major governmental projects or research initiatives. I
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
If you wanted to make a Global Warming fund. I'd start by taking some long term shorts on just about everything.
Because if the physicists are right aboute climate change, and theres absolutely no cause to believe they are not, theres some lousy times ahead for unregulated capitalism.
Re:Global warming-oriented investment funds (Score:4, Interesting)
Plenty of things go up in times of crisis. Also, I don't think the crisis will be as dire as all that. If it really is going to be that dire, across the board catastrophe, the people who write these global warming articles need to present those scenarios more coherently and convincingly... with hard evidence and models and the years in which they're likely to emerge. Global warming is real and yes it will suck but I've yet to see anything that implies any of the hyperbole is plausible (the clathrate gun being the only real doomsday possibility but last I heard it was deemed implausible.)
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Is anyone else waiting impatiently for the non-hand-wringing stories to start appearing? I think it might turn more heads and perhaps even convince more skeptics if journalists could find stories that have more to them beyond "oh noes, global warming is gonna cause something bad to happen unless we stop it."
The only thing I'm waiting impatiently for is for people to take things from the media/journalists with a grain of salt.
Many who write/publish on the internet are doing it for ad revenue(clicks).
They want the emotional response.
I haven't read the story, but for you to feign surprise at a hand-wringing story really just shows how naive you are.
There is that saying, "born in the night..."
Re:Global warming-oriented investment funds (Score:4, Interesting)
Can you possibly be that big of a moron?
Yes, dialing down the tone does get people's attention vs. keeping the volume at a steady 11. You must have had a rough and confusing life if you haven't figured that out by now, Mr. 6 digit ID.
But you would have know that if you'd taken a single moment to google before you posted.
Meh, fair enough, sort of. Bigger point was there should be more talking and debating about them, though. Global warming as abstracted out into a single virtue-signaling political talking point doesn't really get anywhere. I mean I'm sure as hell not going to wade through another one. There's no point. It's a persuasion piece but I don't need persuading.
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Global warming as abstracted out into a single virtue-signaling political talking point doesn't really get anywhere.
There are many people who have read and researched about climate change, the environment, etc;
Those people have weighed the evidence, etc and come to the conclusion that we need to act on this and that we are cause.
Those people, and their numbers grow daily, see phrases like "virtue-signaling" and either:
1. Have no fucking idea what it means and have to google it.
2. Know what it means and understand that it is used, as you say, a "political talking point".
more talking and debating about them
Really, perhaps you should do some research
Re:Global warming-oriented investment funds (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of people say or imply that global warming will directly cause the extinction of the human race, a lot of people. Even hinting at it with some hyperbole is at this point magnificent idioticy; it's basically doing the GOP's job for them. You convince no one except the other side that climate change is a religion. Because you're behaving like it's one. (Unless you're aware of some positive feedback loop the rest of us aren't aware of, like a model predicting an ultra strong clathrate gun effect. What TFS describes isn't anywhere near that strong)
Oh yeah and bonus points if you're against nuclear. 10 seconds of Googling leaves evidence implying you are but it's unclear. Seeing as how you survived decades after getting a major dose of radiation that's a bit surprising but whatever.
If you didn't notice my other reply, the fund you mentioned wasn't the sort of fund I was talking about. Green funds come off as more propaganda (and also aren't as reliable a way to "bet" on global warming as industries that will be directly affected by global warming, not indirectly affected via future governmental regulations and subsidies.) If you have a green-free climate change fund, it's something you can some day point to and say "see, even the wall street guys think it's real now". If it's based mainly on solar panels and the like, that proves absolutely nothing.
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"Wall street guys"? Are you joking? "Wall street guys" are famous for putting short term gains over long term benefit. So now you have to explain to the class why we should give one single solitary fuck what "wall street guys" think?
I don't know how old you are, but maybe you'
Re:Global warming-oriented investment funds (Score:4, Interesting)
If such an index fund could be created, explored and publicized, I think it could be interesting to have this barometer as part of the conversation/analysis of the political climate. Please though, if you'd rather continue hyperventilating and exaggerating, have at it. I for one am bored of it. Convinced but bored. Others are unconvinced and bored. Perhaps you should try calling them Nazis as well. This always works.
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Disordered thinking could be a sign of late onset schi
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A lot of people say or imply that global warming will directly cause the extinction of the human race, a lot of people.
Seems you have a problem with meanings of words.
Extinct - cease to exist.
It does not mean: die over night.
If global warming continues like it is proceeding right now, the human race will go extinct. Unless you count the 30 survivors on Luna and the 15 on Mars: a human race.
You are an idiot. Get used to be called one.
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Yes he did talk about a direc
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See, this is my point (which I admit I didn't fully flesh out in my previous off the cuff post.) There are REASONABLE warnings of doom (i.e. significant negatives for most of humankind if we don't try to fix shit now), but these are drowned out and tainted by hysterical spastics like you. Hence why I suggest going in the other direction.
Yes, that is true, and insightful. Wish I had mod points.
The accurate thing is that climate change is real, well understood, and will have costs. But it will not be the end of the world.
The problem is that whenever the topic is brought up, the reasonable statements aren't as exciting as the "we're all going to die!!" voices, and then get drowned out by "it's all fake!" voices on the other side.
It's real. The science is well confirmed. We understand what causes it, and yes, we are the ones. (not just fos
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If environmentalists really, TRULY believed the situation was that dire, they would immediately switch to supporting nuclear power. Since it's currently the only carbon-neutral power source which can supply the amou
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I disagree on the no-return point. A statement like that implies the planets going to be destroyed which is bullshit because we’ve had these events before in the history of the planet. Every Ice Age this planet has suffered came on the heels of a massive warming period. An Ice Age is the return point. However it’s less than ideal. But bullshit plans like cap and trade do nothing to fix the fucking problem. That is nothing but a socialist spread the wealth plan. As long as you allow someb
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Talking about emergency measures to cool the Earth, be they aeroso
Also, Google fail (Score:2)
So GCCHX isn't what I'm talking about at all. I mean stuff that is inherently tied to global warming, without increase government green subsidy/green regulations increasing demand for something. (Global warming doesn't *directly* cause coal to fall in price or solar pa
Re:Also, Google fail (Score:4, Interesting)
Only? (Score:2)
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Which dept? Defense? Transportation?
What does this sum of money mean? (Score:3)
How to sell ice to eskimos (Score:2)
$70 trillion over 280 years? Okay. (Score:3)
well then (Score:2)
In that case, shouldn't we, you know ... do something?
And by "do something", I don't mean handwringing and blaming others for their energy use (while you use your e-everything in your one person apartment). I mean actually do something, find a technological solution.
Re:How can I get rich from fixing climate change? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask slashdot: How can I get rich from fixing climate change?
Get into the business of selling guns, ammo, dried food rations and water purifiers?
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Ask slashdot: How can I get rich from fixing climate change?
Get into the business of selling guns, ammo, dried food rations and water purifiers?
Not sure if any of those will may you rich. Even gun manufacturers are struggling these days, other than the big ones selling weapons to governments.
In ancient Greece, wars provided income for the poor and was an expense to the rich. Now that the dynamic is reversed, the US has been in almost constant war since the 1940's.
It's the same for "climate change" too: ALL of the solutions offer opportunities for the wealthy and powerful, while causing skyrocketing increases in expenses for the poor and middle cl
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...Gen IV nuclear is the obvious solution to mitigate climate change, but you're not seeing the Anthropocentric Global Warming alarmists talking about that.
To the contrary, you are.
The environmenal movement had been virulently anti-nuclear. Now, particularly among the ones most concerned about warming, you're seeing pro-nuclear views. [independent.co.uk]
Here's James Hansen, king of the climate modellers: https://grist.org/news/more-nu... [grist.org]
Here's Mother Jones, fer chrissakes, telling us we need nuclear power: https://www.motherjones.com/en... [motherjones.com] . If that's not a 180 turnabout, I don't know what is.
Re:How can I get rich from fixing climate change? (Score:4, Interesting)
*sigh*
You're really, truly sure that this is the only reason they want to talk about climate change? There isn't even the faintest possibility that they are concerned that we are causing massive changes with unknown consequences to the only place in the known universe suitable for humanity to live?
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Love 'em or hate' em, we've all got to admit that Nazis were sharp dressers.
Can't disagree there.
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Re: How can I get rich from fixing climate change? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, I do see the pattern! Every industry is bad!
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You must be USAmerican to see black/white topics everywhere.
Don't be a moran and go look at my other posts. This one was mild by comparison!
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As CO2 levels increase, plant growth accelerates while consuming less water
Are you chemistry-challenged? That's not how any of this works.
Actually, yes it is. With an increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, a plant's leaves can absorb the CO2 the plant needs for growth through fewer stomata in the leaves, and fewer stomata means that the plant loses less water through them, reducing its need for water. This has been demonstrated many times in separate research studies.
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CO2 may or may not be the limiting factor in plant growth. In greenhouses, where everything else is deliberately optimized, adding CO2 is a benefit. In outdoor environments, though, it may or may not help.
300 year projection (Score:3)
As per the study, that's worse case scenario over the next 280 years. It's Earth, not Gaia. It's woman, not womyn.
Buried in this anonymous coward post is an actual good point worth paying attention to*:
The article discussed says "This would increase the global climate-driven impacts by $70tn between now and 2300.
This is a very long term thing.
--
*(surprising for an AC post, which are usually garbage comments).
Re:Perfect headline (Score:5, Informative)
Because the exact opposite is happening [wattsupwiththat.com]. Sea ice in the Arctic is rebounding strongly after the El Nino of 2015-2017... And Antarctica continues to pile up ice as well.
Wow that guy is hilarious.
Look at the right hand column and the X-axis. Cherry picking is too generous a term. He literally just went clicking around for the few years and time scale that made this year look like a massive rebound.
I mean it's so bad that I'm actually wondering if someone was just trolling Anthony Watt to expose that he'll publish nonsense on his blob, like the gibberish papers that get submitted to fake journals.
Just look at the source data if you don't believe me how bad that article is [nsidc.org].
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No don't accuse him of cherry picking data. That will just result in him saying you're using statistical voodoo and you're an evil magician who plays it fast and lose with numbers.
Take his data and run with it. Select the EXACT same data and then look at what the ice level is like now towards the end of April. Suddenly our big rebound this year actually turns out to be "the worst of all of *his* selected data".
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I do think El Niño and El Niña are not getting a close enough examination on the global impact on mean temperatures. In the 90s, when we had huge record snows, everything was because El Niño throwing up tons of moisture in the air. Seems there is a relationship between these events and hurricanes as well. Now when we have record snows nobody mentions that we are in El Niño, even though thats exactly whats going on. My meteorologist said that they were asked not to mention that anymore.
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What makes you think the ENSO cycles are not being taken into account? Their contribution is pretty well understood (the peaks in the global temperature trend all correspond with strong El Niño years, whereas La Niña tends to lower temperatures).
But longer term, they don't affect the climate trends, because they're cycles. They move heat & moisture between the ocean and the atmosphere, and it averages out over time. They certainly don't create heat or moisture from nothing, so their net contri
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Currently, we are using about 4.1 billion metric tons of oil and 1 billion metric tons of coal per year. If we assume, that we started by zero in 1899 (we didn't, but this way, we get a lower limit of the amount. Actually we used more) and usage of oil and coal increased linearly until today (again, it didn't, but the actual usage was more than that), within 120 years, we have used 5 billion tons times 120 years / 2 = 300 billion tons of carbohydrates so far, of which 30
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There is a glacier in California today. So 10k years ago it was probably there too.
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It's hubris to think you have *that* much impact on the planet.
No, it's a lack of comprehension on your part to think the world is unalterable by humans. There is currently approximately 116,000Kg of carbon in the atmosphere per human alive. That may sound like a big number, but it's only about 86 cubic metres of coal.
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grant-hungry rent-seeking institutions
ah. about the money. you're talking about a few billions of dollars ? let's talk about the petrol-industry. That's worth 1000 billion a year ! ( and coal ?)
Those BASTARDS! All that rent-seeking money and nobody else gets any benefit out if it whatsoever! How dare they!
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Cold? Climate change. Make energy for heating more expensive.
Its always new energy tax time.
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Sea ice is declining (Score:3)
Because the exact opposite is happening [wattsupwiththat.com]. Sea ice in the Arctic is rebounding strongly after the El Nino of 2015-2017...
Uh, no. Wattsupwiththat is an unreliable source.
This year's Arctic sea ice winter peak was the seventh lowest on record Here's data and graphs: https://neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov/... [nasa.gov]
And more data and graphs: https://sites.google.com/site/... [google.com]
And more data and graphs: https://neven1.typepad.com/ [typepad.com]
Re: Perfect headline (Score:4, Interesting)
You mean the emails that were investigated and unanimously cleared of any misconduct by eight independent inquiries [wikipedia.org]? Or the hockey stick graph that was confirmed by peer-reviewed papers from Huang 2000 [columbia.edu], Smith 2006 [wiley.com], Wahl 2007 [ucar.edu], and others [wikipedia.org]?
As compared to Anthony Watts' assertions in his blog, that were immediately shot down by clearly contradictory evidence from NDIC. If you smell bullshit, look closer to home.
Re:Why not 20000,0000,000 jabillion dollars? (Score:5, Insightful)
millions of acres of permafrost land will be defrosted and be available for farming.
Yes, what could be better for farming than a cold, dark swamp ?
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I think the British will be offended by your tone. Cold Dark swamps is what gives rise to world conquering navies (Who wants to stay at home when your weather sucks that bad)
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She's got huuuuuge tracts of land.
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Cold, dark swamps are also ideal for building castles. Just ask Prince Herbert!
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If the swamp is predominantly green, it will be sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere with a vengeance.
Except is isn't. Permafrost is full of old plant matter that will decay rapidly when temperatures rise.
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Grapdelite 1: We've lost him.
Grapdelite 2: So try an illustration.
Grapdelite 1: Of course. [to Robbie] Why is it good to be big?
Robbie: Well, we get to eat whoever we want. Uh, no offense.
Grapdelite 1: Oh, none taken.
Grapdelite 2: However, if we don't plan for the future, there won't be anymore food. That would be the cost.
Robbie: What do you mean "no more food"? There's always more, that's what "more" means.
Grapdelite 1: Oh, dear... [pulls out a bunch of grapes from the box]
Grapdelite 2: Imagine that these
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Got a problem with actual research subjected to peer review and confirmation?
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Got a problem with actual research subjected to peer review and confirmation?
When I see some on Slashdot I'll let you know.
Re: Here comes the... (Score:2)
Re: Here comes the... (Score:5, Informative)
realclimate.org is run by climate scientists, and most stories are supported by links to scientific papers. It's an excellent place for climate information.
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I have spent time looking at that site in the past, they back test on very few data points and are almost certainly over-fitting.
its simply pointless testing a complex models on a single digit number of data points.
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Just wait as Soros and his buddies getting even richer of this disaster
Contrast with the Koch brothers who have enriched themselves at the cost of a generation, ALREADY.
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You know what's really shocking? Using your bare hand to insert a fork into an electric socket*.
* don't try this at home, kids.
No, it's $36. (Score:2)
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It's a good point and important to look at this in perspective. $7 trillion is a large number, but if the costs are socialized evenly over the worlds population, and all the worlds wealth as well, then this would be easily absorbed.
On the other hand, if the costs are concentrated in Miami or distributed among the already poor then it may not be so easy to absorb.
Regardless, we should look to mitigations that are commensurate with the cost of the issue. $7 trillion is not the entire cost of global warmin
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So the hundreds of thousands of times this has happened before on the planet...people weren't around to wring their hands about it and point fingers of blame.
Yeah, and if they had been, they probably wouldn't be here now. That's why we call them extinction level events, mass extinctions, etc.
The last time atmospheric CO2 were this high, the globe wouldn't have supported human life. Draw your own conclusions, but try to involve logic please.