We Are "Chasing Our Tail" Trying to Save Glaciers, and Earth

[JBG]

See Some Glaciers Will Vanish No Matter What, Study Finds (link) (no paywall, gift article)

Excerpts below

Regardless of climate mitigation strategies, the world’s glaciers are on track to shrink significantly over hundreds of years, according to a new study published on Thursday. They’re locked in to losing ice.
Even if global temperatures stayed where they are today for the next thousand years, essentially an impossibility, glaciers outside of ice sheets would lose roughly one-third of their mass, researchers estimated.

The New York Times is hardly a right-wing publication. Even it concedes that the expensive windmills, heat pumps and intermittent power from wind and solar will not do much. They advocate punishing the middle class by taking away car ownership, and to no effect. heir disguised interest is in de-industrialization and degrowth. The operative term for "climate activists" really want is "degrowth." See Degrowth or Economic Punishment for Affluence:

1. Link - What is degrowth?
2. Link - Degrowth – what's behind the economic theory and why does it matter right now?
3. Link - Degrowth can work — here’s how science can help

Frankly it's a recipe for dystopia. Solutions to the use of fossil fuels that would alleviate the need for constriction are off the table. An example is nuclear power. Governor Cuomo forced the shutdown of Indian Point based purely on ideology. Europe has been busily closing its nuclear plants.

As to fossil fuels not all are created equal. Coal is worse than oil. Oil is worse than natural gas. New York Governor Hochul and former Governor Cuomo have barred fracking in New York, and blocked the flow of fracked gas through pipelines.

See also other articles listed above. All have one real enemy in mind; capitalism and freedom. This is a recipe for dystopia.

During the 1970's a belief developed that our consumption-based society was unsustainable. This philosophy of life was expressed in the U.S. via books such as the 1950's classic by John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society. This was foreshadowed by other authors and thinkers, such as Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck. In Travels Steinbeck rails against conspicuous consumption and other signs of affluence. There was also the Club of Rome report, written over a period between 1968 and 1972, affiliated with MIT (link). Still, the "intellectual" movement was largely ineffectual in changing anything. Thus, an emergency had to be conjured where we were doomed if we did not take "action," however futile. See also Stunning admission from Kamala: "Gone is the day of everyone thinking they could actually live the American dream." The "Green New Deal" is no more American dream; unless it's a dystopian world of everyone locked into their houses, and consuming what the "government" can provide.

 

[ataraxia]

Yay! If we can’t have perfect let’s not do anything at all! And F our kids and grandkids- they are on their own!

 

[Steve Case]

Yay! If we can’t have perfect let’s not do anything at all! And F our kids and grandkids- they are on their own!

And when the glaciers lose a third of their mass, how does that screw our descendants?

 

[Deuce]

And when the glaciers lose a third of their mass, how does that screw our descendants?

Quite a lot of people live near the ocean.

 

[BirdinHand]

And when the glaciers lose a third of their mass, how does that screw our descendants?

Drought
Famine

 

[aociswundumho]

An example is nuclear power. Governor Cuomo forced the shutdown of Indian Point based purely on ideology. Europe has been busily closing its nuclear plants.

Nuclear produces no greenhouse gases, but the left hates it, because, as you state, they want people to suffer via degrowth.

Environmentalism has turned into an intrusive, state-mandated religion. Michael Crichton outlines the argument below:

 

[Lord of Planar]

Glacier loss is primarily cause by atmospheric pollutants darkening the ice and allowing it to absorb more sunlight. This in may cases make the ice melt twice as fast as natural.

We need to stop atmospheric pollutants like soot if we want to stop this trend.

 

[ataraxia]

Nuclear produces no greenhouse gases, but the left hates it, because, as you state, they want people to suffer via degrowth.

Environmentalism has turned into an intrusive, state-mandated religion. Michael Crichton outlines the argument below:

Who said the left hates nuclear?

“If we’re going to end our dependence on foreign oil, if we’re going to bring gas prices down once and for all, as opposed to just playing politics with it every single year, then what we’re going to have to do is to develop every single source of energy that we’ve got, every new technology that can help us become more efficient.

We’ve got to use our innovation. We’ve got to use our brain power. We've got to use our creativity. We've got to have a vision for the future, not just constantly looking backwards at the past. That's where we need to go. That's the future we can build.

And that's what America has always been about, is building the future. We've always been at the cutting-edge. We're always ahead of the curve. Whether it's Thomas Edison or the Wright Brothers or Steve Jobs, we're always thinking about what's the next thing. ”
-Barack Obama

 

[Steve Case]

Drought
Famine

Non sequitur

 

[aociswundumho]

Who said the left hates nuclear?

The Green Party:

Greens call for a halt to all new fossil fuel infrastructure (fracking, oil and gas pipelines, gas-fired power plants). Existing infrastructure is more than sufficient to deliver fossil fuels during the transition as they are phased out. Greens also call for a halt to so-called “low carbon” dirty energy industries and for their rapid phase-out, including nuclear power; fossil fuel carbon capture and sequestration; waste incinerators; large-scale biofuels such as factory farm biogas, landfill gas, and wood pellets; hydrogen from fossil fuels; large-scale ecosystem-altering hydropower; and market-based accounting systems like carbon offsets. Clean energy includes solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, wave, and small-scale hydro.

The GND:

″[T]he Green New Deal will not include investing in new nuclear power plants and will transition away from nuclear to renewable power sources only,” the fact sheet reportedly says.

Bernie Sanders, Ralph Nader, and Noam Chomsky are all against nuclear power.

Friends of the earth and Greenpeace are also against nuclear power.

Nuclear power plants have also been shut down in Germany, Belgium, and Italy.

 

[Lord of Planar]

Who said the left hates nuclear?

Maybe you can explain why then, that nuclear power plants are being shut down.

 

[Steve Case]

Quite a lot of people live near the ocean.

Sea level has been going up ever since the first tide gauge (Brest, France) began keeping records in 1807.
NOAA tells us global average global sea level rise rate [is] 1.7-1.8 mm/yr.

Do you think reducing CO2 emissions will change that. Maybe in a 1,000 years the next ice age will begin.

 

[Peter]

Oh well. I'm sure Earth 2.0 will work out better.

I wonder which solar system it'll be in?
On the plus side we can have an epic Battlestar Galactica style fleet that flees earth and leaves the suckers behind to slowly die.

 

[ataraxia]

Maybe you can explain why then, that nuclear power plants are being shut down.

Because they are not economically viable. Low electricity prices due to cheap natural gas, increased operating costs, and competition from other energy sources have led to many nuclear plants becoming economically uncompetitive. Sorry, no deep state to fault here.

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46820#:~:text=Twelve%20U.S.%20nuclear%20power%20reactors%20have%20permanently%20closed%20since%20February,closures%20have%20not%20been%20announced.

 

[Lord of Planar]

Oh well. I'm sure Earth 2.0 will work out better.

I wonder which solar system it'll be in?
On the plus side we can have an epic Battlestar Galactica style fleet that flees earth and leaves the suckers behind to slowly die.

The Lost in Space reboot is just that. Ships are taking families to Alpha Centauri because the earth is in real bad shape and getting worse:



Fantastic show.

 

[ataraxia]

Sea level has been going up ever since the first tide gauge (Brest, France) began keeping records in 1807.
NOAA tells us global average global sea level rise rate [is] 1.7-1.8 mm/yr.

Do you think reducing CO2 emissions will change that. Maybe in a 1,000 years the next ice age will begin.

Formal record keeping has only been happening since 1880. The most dramatic increases have been in the last few decades.

Climate Change: Global Sea Level

Global average sea level has risen 8-9 inches since 1880, and the rate is accelerating thanks to glacier and ice sheet melt.

www.climate.gov

 

[ataraxia]

The Green Party:



The GND:



Bernie Sanders, Ralph Nader, and Noam Chomsky are all against nuclear power.

Friends of the earth and Greenpeace are also against nuclear power.

Nuclear power plants have also been shut down in Germany, Belgium, and Italy.

See post #14.

Do you think it's logically impossible for market forces to lead to situations where there is short-sighted profits but long term catastrophic consequences?

 

[Peter]

The Lost in Space reboot is just that. Ships are taking families to Alpha Centauri because the earth is in real bad shape and getting worse:



Fantastic show.

I never watched that for some unknown reason and I love almost all Sci-fi.
Did it have a good ending as that's always a real kick in the nuts to have a good story spoilt by a terrible end like the GoT ending.

 

[ataraxia]

And when the glaciers lose a third of their mass, how does that screw our descendants?

Melting glaciers and ice sheets are the biggest cause of sea level rise in recent decades. Glacier loss is a threat to natural and human water supplies in many parts of the world.

Climate change: mountain glaciers

Present since the last ice age, most of the world's glaciers are now shrinking or disappearing altogether as the climate gets warmer.

www.climate.gov

 

[Steve Case]

Formal record keeping has only been happening since 1880. The most dramatic increases have been in the last few decades.

Climate Change: Global Sea Level

Global average sea level has risen 8-9 inches since 1880, and the rate is accelerating thanks to glacier and ice sheet melt.

www.climate.gov

Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level PSMSL Data obtaining page

 

[ataraxia]

Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level PSMSL Data obtaining page

OK. So?

 

[OlNate]

Maybe you can explain why then, that nuclear power plants are being shut down.

ChatGPT says it's primarily due to aging infrastructure and economic challenges.

(I tend to be a fan of nuclear energy, so don't shoot the messenger...hehe)

I think some democrats are trying to bolster their environmental brand by opposing them out of "environmental" concerns, but at a quick glance it appears the cost factor is the bigger challenge.

 

[Deuce]

Sea level has been going up ever since the first tide gauge (Brest, France) began keeping records in 1807.
NOAA tells us global average global sea level rise rate [is] 1.7-1.8 mm/yr.

Do you think reducing CO2 emissions will change that. Maybe in a 1,000 years the next ice age will begin.

Ok, and?

 

[Lord of Planar]

I never watched that for some unknown reason and I love almost all Sci-fi.
Did it have a good ending as that's always a real kick in the nuts to have a good story spoilt by a terrible end like the GoT ending.

It is still available on Netflix, and is completed. Three seasons.

 

[Manc Skipper]

And when the glaciers lose a third of their mass, how does that screw our descendants?

A glacier in Switzerland lost more than a third of it's mass last week an entire village is flooded and hundreds of newly homeless evacuated. Rescuers dare not attempt clearup for fear of further landslides...