I'm just going to say it: We cannot stop the climate from changing

[OrphanSlug]

If any of this was serious, we would start by eliminating diesel power, clean up the ocean transportation vessels, be honest about hybrid car emissions, etc.

Too much dishonesty surrounding the agenda to tax CO2.

I'd flip this a little, it may be coal we should eliminate first.

 

[longview]

1) Given our current technology and technology reasonably expected to be available in the near future, we are unable to control the climate to the extent that we could change it to our advantage or stop changes already occurring. What weather altering devices have we created in the last hundred years?

Cloud seeding? Marginal effects and wouldn't help stop climate change as far as I know.

Carbon cleaning? Very much an infant science. Not likely to have any impact in the foreseeable future other than slightly slowing the rate of carbon increase in the air.

Reducing carbon emission? Clearly the goal of the Climate Change movement. That's a non-starter because:

2) The U.S. does not have the will to reduce our use of carbon to the point that we have to give up the conveniences of the industrial age. We might drive electric cars when they become a little cooler and a little cheaper. But they will still run on carbon-generated electricity and still be built by mining the nickel, lithium, manganese, and cobalt for the multiple batteries. Such mining is harmful to the environment, not to mention the social costs.

We won't go solar or wind unless it is cheaper and just as reliable as fossil fuel electricity. We won't go nuclear, because . . . hate to say it . . . because some people watch too many movies. The U.S. will not "do our share" to reduce climate change, and even if we did, it would be to no avail because:

3) The rest of the world will not even consider reducing its carbon. China and Russia are by far the worst creators of carbon emissions and they could not care less that they are. We have little leverage on either of them. What little we do is useless for stopping climate change because the Party that is willing to stand up to China and Russia doesn't care about climate change and the Party that cares about climate change is not willing to stand up to China and Russia.

So, what's the solution?

Preparation.

Climate change is coming and worst case scenario, it will cause great harm to the human livability of certain areas of the Earth. Good news is that we can easily predict which areas will suffer the most harm if the worst-case climate models are realized.

The discussion should be about what steps to take to reduce that harm to humans.

I agree except for 2) and 3), and there is likely minimal benefit from reducing CO2 emissions, BUT,
We need to move away from fossil fuels, because they we become too expensive to sustain society!
(They really will not, but only because they will be price themselves out of the market.)
Wind, might have some uses , but solar has real potential, if paired with massive seasonal grid scale energy storage.
The problem is, the only people who have the capability to do this, are the oil companies the environmentalist have been demonizing for decades!
Once we prefect the process at scale, we sell the less expensive carbon neutral fuels around the world!
Organic oil will still be needed, for plastics and other uses, just not as fuel.
But to get from where we are now, to where we need to be, we need oil, natural gas, and Nuclear power.

 

[longview]

What changes have you made?

I am working on an idea of a simple off grid home power supply, solar panels, batteries and a 1 ton ductless AC/heater.
The main idea is that if on sunny days, you put 1 ton of cooling into a normal house, you can cut the peak energy use from you AC by about 20% or more.
The system could also keep a single room cool and dehumidified, and runs a few small appliances during a power outage.

 

[Cameron]

That's what I'm talking about. I'm thinking West Texas, myself. What with my beloved Houston area being underwater for sure.

I'd get a little farther from Texas if I were you. Not sure how old you are, but if you're my age and climatologists prove correct, within our lifetime we may see heat waves that kill millions of people in a week, and that area seems ripe for that. Plus you guys will be the front line for a migration crisis that makes the current difficulties look small. If you are concerned about living next to liberals, maybe consider Alaska?

Of course, maybe it won't be that bad. If you are really interested in what it might take to get the entire world to do something about climate change, Ministry for the Future, a well researched science fiction book by Kim Stanley Robinson, is very interesting. And I didn't find it that partisan, unless you can't stand to even consider the issue. That guy will be this century's Aldous Huxley/Ray Bradbury.

 

[longview]

That's what I'm talking about. I'm thinking West Texas, myself. What with my beloved Houston area being underwater for sure.

Greetings Fellow Houstonian, no worries on that front, the seas are not raising that fast.
Galveston sea level NOAA

The relative sea level trend is 6.62 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence
interval of +/- 0.69 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from
1957 to 2011 which is equivalent to a change of 2.17 feet in 100 years.​

Also keep in mind that more than half of that rise is subsidence, which is more under control now.
I am at 29 feet, but most of Houston is at about 50 feet, and the Heights are at 80 feet (Did you ever wonder why it was named the Heights?)
In any case, Houston will be fine for another 500 years.

​

 

[Glitch]

I'd flip this a little, it may be coal we should eliminate first.

What about those locations where coal and fuel-oil are the only energy resources available? Should we tell them "we got ours, so you go **** yourself?"

 

[longview]

I'd get a little farther from Texas if I were you. Not sure how old you are, but if you're my age and climatologists prove correct, within our lifetime we may see heat waves that kill millions of people in a week, and that area seems ripe for that. Plus you guys will be the front line for a migration crisis that makes the current difficulties look small. If you are concerned about living next to liberals, maybe consider Alaska?

What climatologists are you following that say within a Human lifetime it will be too hot to live in Texas?
There are several factors to consider.
First and foremost, is that TCR, while still too high is much closer to reality than ECS, which only exists in simulations.
Here is what IPCC AR6 says about TCR

Based on process understanding, warming over the instrumental record, and emergent constraints, the best 28 estimate of TCR is 1.8°C, the likely range is 1.4° to 2.2°C
and the very likely range is 1.2° to 2.4°C. There is 29 a high level of agreement among the different lines of evidence

Now even if emissions were to get to 5 ppm per year, this would put that 1.8°C, out past year 2100.
Add to this that the average warming from CO2 affects the evening and winter lows much more than the summer highs.
This can easily be demonstrated comparing NOAA's Climate at a glance May to Sept for the US Maximum and Minimum temps.
Notice that the Minimum temperatures for the warm months, increased at 6 times the rate of the maximum temperatures.
NOAA Min


This means that for places like Texas, the warmer months MIGHT see an increase in maximum temperatures of about .3C by 2100!

 

[Glitch]

I'd get a little farther from Texas if I were you. Not sure how old you are, but if you're my age and climatologists prove correct, within our lifetime we may see heat waves that kill millions of people in a week, and that area seems ripe for that. Plus you guys will be the front line for a migration crisis that makes the current difficulties look small. If you are concerned about living next to liberals, maybe consider Alaska?

Of course, maybe it won't be that bad. If you are really interested in what it might take to get the entire world to do something about climate change, Ministry for the Future, a well researched science fiction book by Kim Stanley Robinson, is very interesting. And I didn't find it that partisan, unless you can't stand to even consider the issue. That guy will be this century's Aldous Huxley/Ray Bradbury.

Unfortunately, Alaska is not free of leftist filth. Juneau and Anchorage are full of such scum. Fortunately, they confine themselves to those two cities and do not venture beyond them because they know they wouldn't survive the experience.

 

[j brown's body]

I'd flip this a little, it may be coal we should eliminate first.

40, 000 people work in coal. There are more yoga instructors in this country than there are coal miners.

 

[OrphanSlug]

What about those locations where coal and fuel-oil are the only energy resources available? Should we tell them "we got ours, so you go **** yourself?"

No, don't be dramatic. It means transition over time, any plan has to account for that.

 

[Nomad4Ever]

Best to stop paying them them to reproduce, then.

Hmm, idk about this take chief.

Also they were talking about like...Africa. The US should be mostly fine.

 

[j brown's body]

Its fine, really, if right-wingers want to insist that there is nothing we can do about global warming. However, the efforts we take to mitigate it will improve the quality of life on this planet, and that makes it worth it. And keeping your head buried in the sand about it is no excuse for not supporting the infrastructure work that is needed to respond to the new, destructive weather patterns we are seeing because of global warming.

 

[Cameron]

What climatologists are you following that say within a Human lifetime it will be too hot to live in Texas?

I didn't say Texas would be uninhabitable, I said we could see heat waves that kill millions in a week, and that could happen in Texas. That likely won't be an annual occurrence. But all that is required for this to happen is a "wet bulb" temperature of about 95 degrees, which we've already hit in many places, and power failure across a wide area (which is likely to happen in such conditions because of the increased drain on energy from AC). Predictions of average summer temperatures are a different matter.

Texas is not the highest risk location for these problems, but it was specifically mentioned.

 

[Cameron]

Unfortunately, Alaska is not free of leftist filth. Juneau and Anchorage are full of such scum. Fortunately, they confine themselves to those two cities and do not venture beyond them because they know they wouldn't survive the experience.

I hope you're talking about nature/bears. I'm sure you rugged conservatives can build your own cities if you want, or live in the wilderness if that's your preference.

 

[OrphanSlug]

40, 000 people work in coal. There are more yoga instructors in this country than there are coal miners.

4K, 40K, 400K that is not the only factor, what is the factor is how to help them into other technologies. Something missing from the 'rhetoric' from the far left is how to help people who are in industries that have a climate change impact.

No one said it would be easy, but it is something we have to do now. Otherwise it is just punishment, which plays into the hands of the GOP that has no ****s to give over climate change.

 

[longview]

I didn't say it would be too hot to live in Texas, I said we could see heat waves that kill millions in a week, and that could happen in Texas. That likely won't be an annual occurrence. But all that is required for this to happen is a "wet bulb" temperature of about 95 degrees, which we've already hit in many places, and power failure across a wide area (which is likely to happen in such conditions because of the increased drain on energy from AC). Predictions of average summer temperatures are a different matter.

Texas is not the highest risk location for these problems, but it was specifically mentioned.

We may see those kinds of heat waves, they just will not be related to AGW.
The reality is that AGW only causes minor increases in the maximum temperatures, over a long term average.
We will still have plenty of weather, but weather temperature changes are already many times larger than what is expected from AGW.

 

[Glitch]

I hope you're talking about nature/bears.

Obviously. Leftist filth are vehemently anti-Second Amendment, like Timothy Tredwell, the self-proclaimed bear expert from San Francisco that promptly got both himself and his girlfriend consumed by a brown bear. Or the leftist moron who decided it would be a good idea to walk right up to the face of a land-locked glacier, only to have ~10,000 tons of ice calve upon his empty head.

Outside of their city support centers, leftists are complete morons that cannot survive in the real-world.

 

[Cameron]

Obviously. Leftist filth are vehemently anti-Second Amendment, like Timothy Tredwell, the self-proclaimed bear expert from San Francisco that promptly got both himself and his girlfriend consumed by a brown bear. Or the leftist moron who decided it would be a good idea to walk right up to the face of a land-locked glacier, only to have ~10,000 tons of ice calve upon his empty head.

Outside of their city support centers, leftists are complete morons that cannot survive in the real-world.

Not sure how necessary it is to go out to the wilderness and interact with bears and glaciers these days. Seems more important to be able to function in the modern world, and on that score with the denial of science and education and refusal to extend common courtesies to fellow human beings it seems conservatives are less equipped to survive in the "real world."

 

[vegas giants]

Climate change is coming. Mitigation and adaptation are our only hope

 

[Cameron]

We may see those kinds of heat waves, they just will not be related to AGW.
The reality is that AGW only causes minor increases in the maximum temperatures, over a long term average.
We will still have plenty of weather, but weather temperature changes are already many times larger than what is expected from AGW.

Ok, we can each believe what we want, time will tell.

 

[Chainsawmassacre]

Fact is climate changes and often does so suddenly and dramatically. A plethora of previous civilizations have vanished due to climate change. These were agrarian societies living season to season and were extremely weather dependent. A bad growing season led to starvation. Multiple concurrent bad growing seasons led to mass famine and societal collapse.
Modern man is better equipped with technology and is probably more adaptable to abrupt climate change. Time will tell.

 

[longview]

Ok, we can each believe what we want, time will tell.

Science is not about what we believe, but what the data tells us!

 

[vegas giants]

Science is not about what we believe, but what the data tells us!

And I agree with the overwhelming number of experts who read the data....not you

 

[Glitch]

Not sure how necessary it is to go out to the wilderness and interact with bears and glaciers these days.

Good, then stay were you belong, in your city shitholes.

Seems more important to be able to function in the modern world, and on that score with the denial of science and education and refusal to extend common courtesies to fellow human beings it seems conservatives are less equipped to survive in the "real world."

Yet I have a degree in science. How about you? Anyone who cannot cope with the real-world, that includes the overwhelming majority of rural areas, are the morons here. They are so utterly dependent about the city supporting their every whim they would starve to death if their meat didn't come cellophane-wrapped from grocery stores. These leftist morons are so stupid and so far removed from reality that can't even feed themselves.

 

[seymourflops]

I am working on an idea of a simple off grid home power supply, solar panels, batteries and a 1 ton ductless AC/heater.
The main idea is that if on sunny days, you put 1 ton of cooling into a normal house, you can cut the peak energy use from you AC by about 20% or more.
The system could also keep a single room cool and dehumidified, and runs a few small appliances during a power outage.

That's the kind of things I advocate. Low cost changes that provide benefits along with possibly redusing climate change.