Climate Change Thread

[Beskar]

We haven't had this one for a while, so lets start out simple with a graph of Average Global Temperature throughout History.



I feel it makes the conclusion itself rather evident.

[Legs]

NBC News just called it the great freeze – coldest weather in years. Is our country still spending money on the GLOBAL WARMING HOAX?
I blame the chinese, its all justr a scam to impede US industry.

[Hooahguy]

^Nice Trump quote.

Also loved the Spinal Tap reference in the OP.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

And the Earth has been much warmer and much colder in the past (check longer timelines). And will be again. Life is resilient and our doomsayers are, in part, trying to stop change when change is inevitable.

This is not to deny the partial (possibly substantial) anthropomorphic character of the current increase vector. But the biggest contributor is CO2 and the biggest source is the billions more humans than have ever existed before along with their desire for electric power and what not. The biggest greenhouse gas is our continuing to exhale -- so how many billions need to be euthanized?

Obviously, you are not suggesting anything so Malthusian/Kevorkianesque, nor do I disagree with measures to curtail emissions. Yet the aggressive track suggested above would involve a world-wide depression of epic proportions and would spark untold wars etc. This means that the aggressive option isn't all the appealing either.

We will have to take measures to adapt for survival in a warmer world -- look forward to Saskatchewan grain farms, larger seawalls, and elites who will still end up with the best beachfront property -- even if it IS the Berkshires.

[Husar]

I like how they use "Before Christ Excelsior" and "Christian Era" for the timeline.

As for stopping emissions now causing issues, so will not stopping them. If the earth warms by about 4°C, large parts become uninhabitable and the people from there will have to go somewhere. Then we will get either far more immigrants than we already have or we will have to mass-murder them to prevent them from coming here...

There is another "small" issue with the warming scenario in that it will become uncontrollable beyond a certain point as the permafrost begins to melt and sets free enormous amounts of stored methane, which is a 17 times stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, add to that the methane under arctic ice the limited ability of warm water to store CO2, the increase of water in the air, which also has a greenhouse effect...
Surely it may reverse after a few thousand years, but what do we do until then?

I also agree that the number of humans overall is an issue. A lot of people say the planet can sustain even a lot more, but that argument forgets that they all also want to consume more and more... http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712

That's right, if all our current humans lived like Americans, we'd need a little over 4 earths to sustain that consumption ressource-wise...
Germany is somewhere close to France in the region of 2.5 earths, but then again I've criticized Europe plenty for taking away other peoples' resources.
And this probably doesn't even account for the use of resources that will end one day.

Keep in mind that oil for example is also a vital ingredient for many medications, then consider that they already found virii below the ice or in the permafrost that weren't around for some 20000 years or so, virii we might be almost helpless against...
Is it really clever to burn such a resource away within a few years just to not have to sit next to strangers on the way to work for example?
https://www.fastcoexist.com/1680136/...s-we-have-left

And to think that a lot of people view a shrinking population as bad because the economy can't grow (and use even more resources...)

[edyzmedieval]

Billions of people existing on this planet - CO2. Fine.

But having a ton of air pollutants. A ton of extra CO2. Not fine.

We either do something about it pretty quickly - adopt greener cars, and improve electric cars such as Teslas (although those pose environmental problems too, just not CO2 - we're not efficient at disposing of millions of big batteries yet), curtail emissions, more filters on polluting factories... and fast. Fine.

We don't do the above. Not fine.

Ok wait, that's not fine either. Not fine ^2. It's going to be horrific actually.

[Husar]

Here's a map for reference:


Source: https://universe-review.ca/F10-multicell18.htm

They also have some scenarios and so on on that site.
Now just imagine what happens if/when all the people from the yellow and brown areas are forced to move to the green areas...the immigration scares of today will seem small in comparison. And that's assuming they will just begin to migrate over time and not try to invade in force...

[a completely inoffensive name]

The biggest greenhouse gas is our continuing to exhale -- so how many billions need to be euthanized?

This isn't true at all, and I distinctly remember you being corrected on it last time.

The physical presence of more humans actually sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. The carbon that is exhaled is cycled, not added to the atmosphere as that carbon is taken from the atmosphere to begin with to become the food we eat...

The actions resulting from additional humans living on this planet is the real impact, as our emissions from industry, transportation and agriculture (think cows) are the main drivers of CO2/methane concentrations and thus climate change.

To be honest talking about the economy just highlights the lack of understanding about this issue. It's not about preventing a hotter Earth, its about preventing an Earth from getting hotter much, much faster than the biosphere can withstand. Will the economy keep growing if 40% of the biological diversity on Earth collapses and our seas acidify to the point where the coral reefs are all bleached and unable to support life?

[Greyblades]

agriculture (think cows) are the main drivers of CO2/methane concentrations and thus climate change.

Wait arent cows also part of the cycle that nullifies human co2 production?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Wait arent cows also part of the cycle that nullifies human co2 production?

What cycle nullifies human CO2 production?

Cows generate methane, which is more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. The CO2 removed to grow the food for the cows becomes a net negative since it is converted to large amounts of methane.

[Fragony]

Take longer periods, you will see nothing weird

[Pannonian]

And the Earth has been much warmer and much colder in the past (check longer timelines). And will be again. Life is resilient and our doomsayers are, in part, trying to stop change when change is inevitable.

This is not to deny the partial (possibly substantial) anthropomorphic character of the current increase vector. But the biggest contributor is CO2 and the biggest source is the billions more humans than have ever existed before along with their desire for electric power and what not. The biggest greenhouse gas is our continuing to exhale -- so how many billions need to be euthanized?

Obviously, you are not suggesting anything so Malthusian/Kevorkianesque, nor do I disagree with measures to curtail emissions. Yet the aggressive track suggested above would involve a world-wide depression of epic proportions and would spark untold wars etc. This means that the aggressive option isn't all the appealing either.

We will have to take measures to adapt for survival in a warmer world -- look forward to Saskatchewan grain farms, larger seawalls, and elites who will still end up with the best beachfront property -- even if it IS the Berkshires.

A greener world less reliant on oil is good in a number of ways, even if you disagree with the OP's argument. In the longer term, there is the effect of less sustained release of carbon currently locked in fossil fuels. More immediately, it means less reliance on the goodwill of the middle east, where there is none for us. For Europe, it also means less reliance on Russia.

[Viking]

There is another "small" issue with the warming scenario in that it will become uncontrollable beyond a certain point as the permafrost begins to melt and sets free enormous amounts of stored methane, which is a 17 times stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, add to that the methane under arctic ice the limited ability of warm water to store CO2, the increase of water in the air, which also has a greenhouse effect...
Surely it may reverse after a few thousand years, but what do we do until then?

Methane is not stable in the atmosphere, and is converted into carbon dioxide in 8-9 years on average (it's also vulnerable to UV radiation, which is why its discovery on Mars is interesting):

In the lower part of the atmosphere, below about 10-12 km (the troposphere), the key cycles are mediated above all by the presence of what are called OH radicals — colloquially known as the atmospheric detergent. All hydrocarbon chemical species that are emitted can be eventually broken down (or oxidized) by these radicals to CO2 and H2O, and methane is no exception. An average molecule of CH4 lasts around eight to nine years before it gets oxidized. This is a long time compared to most atmospheric chemicals but is fast enough so that there can be significant year-to-year variability.

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/fe...00409_methane/

Thus, the direct effect of this methane should not last long as it comes from a storage that will deplete.

[Greyblades]

What cycle nullifies human CO2 production?

I was referring to CO2 produced through breathing, as you had just said:

The carbon that is exhaled is cycled, not added to the atmosphere as that carbon is taken from the atmosphere to begin with to become the food we eat...

I wondered why there isnt a cycle for methane, considering that there has almost certainly been methane production on the same scale as our current cow population throughout the planet's history (somehow I dont believe that dinosaurs didnt have similar bodily functions as modern bovine.) That earth hasnt turned into mars from it indicates there must be some countering force.

[Viking]

That earth hasnt turned into mars from it indicates there must be some countering force.

I presume you mean Venus, although Venus has an atmosphere of 96% carbon dioxide.

[Greyblades]

I thought we were talking methane.

[Viking]

Yes, and you seemed to be asking why the earth doesn't have more methane than it does. If methane could just accumulate, the planet would get hotter and hotter and thus more similar to Venus; which is a planet with a very strong greenhouse effect. Mars, on the other hand, is a very cold place.

[HopAlongBunny]

Climate change is not really at issue; with 90+% of scientists agreeing, that's about as settled as you get.
The issue is "pay now or pay later".
There will be a cost to moving from fossil fuels to renewables; offset over time by reductions in health care and expanding tech, engineering and infrastructure opportunities.
Or we pay later in damage control; war, famine and (perhaps) massive human migration. These things all exist...it's just a matter of scale...

[Husar]

Methane is not stable in the atmosphere, and is converted into carbon dioxide in 8-9 years on average (it's also vulnerable to UV radiation, which is why its discovery on Mars is interesting):
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/fe...00409_methane/

Thus, the direct effect of this methane should not last long as it comes from a storage that will deplete.

So we try to cshock-release all the methane at once by heating the earth as fast as possible and then wait 8-9 years until we're all crisp and the methane is gone again? Surely the people and plants in Africa, India, China, South, Central and North America, Southern Europe etc. could survive a mere 8-9 years of hellish desertification without whining too much about not having any food or water.

I wondered why there isnt a cycle for methane, considering that there has almost certainly been methane production on the same scale as our current cow population throughout the planet's history (somehow I dont believe that dinosaurs didnt have similar bodily functions as modern bovine.) That earth hasnt turned into mars from it indicates there must be some countering force.

Quite a few things were different back then, there was also more oxygen in the atmosphere and insects could grow much larger due to that.
Are you saying that you'd want to revert to a time where spiders groiw so large that they could eat you?

Also here: http://www.livescience.com/44330-jur...n-dioxide.html

There is one thing to keep in mind though: A lot of natural changes are very slow, giving living things centuries to adapt in most cases. Sudden changes on the other hand often lead to extinction, such as that of the dinosaurs. The graph in the OP nicely demonstrates that this could be a comparatively fast change that we are looking that. Now imagine that a lot of the plants and animals we rely on for food just die out because they can't handle the changes so fast. That we have air conditioning is useless if all the crops and trees die because the bees succumbed to the heat for example... (fictional example, I'm not sure which temperature changes would be required to kill off which species, but coral reefs die now already)

[Greyblades]

I dont need to be persuaded over global warming, it's the cows methane being a great contributor I have problems getting my head around; there must be a way that methane has been extracted from the atmosphere otherwise we'd already be at venus levels after ~3.5 billion years of buildup.

[Legs]

I dont need to be persuaded over global warming, it's the cows methane being a great contributor I have problems getting my head around; there must be a way that methane has been extracted from the atmosphere otherwise we'd already be at venus levels after ~3.5 billion years of buildup.

Perhaps the thing with cows is the intensification/industrialisation over the past century.

[Kralizec]

This is not to deny the partial (possibly substantial) anthropomorphic character of the current increase vector. But the biggest contributor is CO2 and the biggest source is the billions more humans than have ever existed before along with their desire for electric power and what not. The biggest greenhouse gas is our continuing to exhale -- so how many billions need to be euthanized?

Eh, not really. The stuff we eat, and by extension the CO2 and waste we put out, has been a regular part of the global carbon cycle for millions of years. (cattle is a different issue because they produce methane)
Fossil fuels are essentially carbon materials that have been removed from the global environment for millions, or dozens of millions of years. Sure, Earth was warmer in those days, but the Earth's ecological system nowadays would be in for a shock if all that carbon material is added to the cycle again.

[HopAlongBunny]

The problem is not exactly cows, rather industrial ag.
Cows have been defecating for a long time (just a guess) the difference is concentration and "disposal".
Instead of broadcast over a large area over time, the present system concentrates an enormous volume; even where the matter is spread for soil enrichment, part of that benefit is lost because of the degradation/elimination of recyclers.
It is a breakdown of what I guess you could call the Fecal Cycle :p

https://www.amazon.ca/Origin-Feces-E.../dp/177041116X

[HopAlongBunny]

From waste to water.
Here's a look at how our best heat-sink is doing:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/ocean-heat-1.3408706

and the Greenland ice sheet:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ot-rebounding/

[Viking]

there must be a way that methane has been extracted from the atmosphere otherwise we'd already be at venus levels after ~3.5 billion years of buildup.

The stability of methane in the atmosphere is explained in post #13. That means that if you want more methane in the atmosphere, you need more sources of methane, which more cows may represent.

[Fragony]

Can I say something that sounds really nasty, stop helping people who are overbreeding. Most sibblings used to die but science caught up and most survive. And need recourses.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

meant to reply to this yesterday but got caught up.

Yes, the exhale thing is already part of the cycle so to speak. The real greenhouse burden is the sheer number of humans and their concomitant desire for power and services.

My key points really boiled down to:

1) the predicted heat levels are not going to scour life from the planet or eliminate biodiversity. Earth has be much hotter in the past and still had a rich variety and breadth of life forms (source of those fossil fuels as you will recall). I will stipulate that a large "die-off" among current species would engender problems for human beings, it is just that the real doom-and-gloomers (we are killing the planet types) are a bit off base.

2) efforts to ameliorate the anthropomorphic warming that is part of the current up cycle (see this source are warranted, but that our primary response will have to be adaptation to a new normal.

Consider:

In 1900, which a number of sources point to as the last point in history when human greenhouse impact was clearly within the carrying capacity of the planet, humans consumed approximately 50 exajoules of energy from various sources, the bulk of which were non-fossil. Our current consumption is about 550 exajoules (source). In that time span, world population totals have gone from roughly 2 billion to 7.4 billion. Thus our energy consumption per capita has more than tripled.

Trying to take the Earth back to that "carrying capacity" point (and yes it is arguable, but I needed some baseline) would require that we collectively stop the use of 90% of the world's current power use or replace that power use with non-fossil sources (or some combination of both).

Replacement has a LONG way to go also, since non-fossil sources are being used for only 130 exajoules or so of that 550. Worldwide, solar power constitutes less than 60 gigajoules (and remember that giga is 10 to the 9th, whereas exa is 10 to the 18th). Hydropower and nuclear sources constitute no more than 75 exajoules (non-fossil biofuels making up the rest of the 130 exajoule figure noted above).

ALL of the non-fossil alternatives are substantially more costly than the fossil fuels in terms of power generation. A coal-fired power generation plant is cheap in relative terms.


NOT saying we cannot make an impact in the warming trend -- we have already, so we can clearly do so in the other direction -- but the current crop of solution ideas our there (more government control, economic cutbacks, punish the fossil energy companies) can't do more than slow the trend moderately. So yes, we must start and continue to reduce our production of greenhouse gasses, particularly the more persistent forms.

We will have to grow ourselves out of this -- the growth of our species signals the need for MORE, not less power consumption. Solar delivered through our atmosphere is a nothing, so how do we get the unadulterated stuff down here for our use? Fission is useful, but though it's waste is a small amount, the radiation concerns are lengthy ones, can we make fusion practical before my son is old and gray? Can we rework our aging agriculture irrigation systems to be power generating systems at the same time? Maybe Tesla was correct and we have merely to tap into the existing energy that is the earth itself?


In short:

We are too far along in this trend to shift it's direction fast enough to avoid significant consequences. SO, make the necessary adaptations.

Curtailment of energy uses is at best a limited response, though we should convert more and more to non-greenhouse sources as resources allow.

Something "new" will have to be created to truly solve the problem.

[Husar]

Can I say something that sounds really nasty, stop helping people who are overbreeding. Most sibblings used to die but science caught up and most survive. And need recourses.

So kill them rather than fix the issues? Ever heard of the idea that some people get many children because they hope some of them will survive or pay for their retirement etc.? How about we fix their medical and retirement issues instead of starving their children on purpose?

1) the predicted heat levels are not going to scour life from the planet or eliminate biodiversity. Earth has be much hotter in the past and still had a rich variety and breadth of life forms (source of those fossil fuels as you will recall). I will stipulate that a large "die-off" among current species would engender problems for human beings, it is just that the real doom-and-gloomers (we are killing the planet types) are a bit off base.

I think you oversimplify a bit unless you want to say that a world of oversized cockroaches and scorpions in a desert environment would be a nice place for us to live in. As I said above, if we lose species such as bees, we also lose a lot of plants. And if this happens very fast in comparison, evolution is probably not fast enough to adapt unless we are talking bacteria and species that are already very tough.

2) efforts to ameliorate the anthropomorphic warming that is part of the current up cycle (see this source are warranted, but that our primary response will have to be adaptation to a new normal.

Again, the immigration is already a big topic now, if the new normal is that half of Africa will come to live in northern Europe, I'm not sure if people will just adapt to that and go "I bought that second car, now I house an African family in my home to adapt to the consequences."

In 1900, which a number of sources point to as the last point in history when human greenhouse impact was clearly within the carrying capacity of the planet, humans consumed approximately 50 exajoules of energy from various sources, the bulk of which were non-fossil. Our current consumption is about 550 exajoules (source). In that time span, world population totals have gone from roughly 2 billion to 7.4 billion. Thus our energy consumption per capita has more than tripled.

Trying to take the Earth back to that "carrying capacity" point (and yes it is arguable, but I needed some baseline) would require that we collectively stop the use of 90% of the world's current power use or replace that power use with non-fossil sources (or some combination of both).

Replacement has a LONG way to go also, since non-fossil sources are being used for only 130 exajoules or so of that 550. Worldwide, solar power constitutes less than 60 gigajoules (and remember that giga is 10 to the 9th, whereas exa is 10 to the 18th). Hydropower and nuclear sources constitute no more than 75 exajoules (non-fossil biofuels making up the rest of the 130 exajoule figure noted above).

ALL of the non-fossil alternatives are substantially more costly than the fossil fuels in terms of power generation. A coal-fired power generation plant is cheap in relative terms.[/QUOTE]

A few issues/questions:
1) What do we do when fossils run out in 30 years? Just say "that sucks" and watch all our food go bad because the cooling units are offline? Just not drive to work anymore?

2) That non-fossils currently don't produce enough output is hardly a secret, but if we don't invest in them, they never will...
There is a lot of energy coming from the sun, it is completely free of charge and already provides more than enough energy for all the biological life that has developed here. There are also plenty of ways to convert it to electrical energy, you forgot to mention wind farms for example. We may not even have to replace those entire 550 exajoules if we are clever and manage to reduce our usage. A shrinking population would be a nice step, but we are currently working hard in the other direction.

NOT saying we cannot make an impact in the warming trend -- we have already, so we can clearly do so in the other direction -- but the current crop of solution ideas our there (more government control, economic cutbacks, punish the fossil energy companies) can't do more than slow the trend moderately. So yes, we must start and continue to reduce our production of greenhouse gasses, particularly the more persistent forms.

We will have to grow ourselves out of this -- the growth of our species signals the need for MORE, not less power consumption. Solar delivered through our atmosphere is a nothing, so how do we get the unadulterated stuff down here for our use? Fission is useful, but though it's waste is a small amount, the radiation concerns are lengthy ones, can we make fusion practical before my son is old and gray? Can we rework our aging agriculture irrigation systems to be power generating systems at the same time? Maybe Tesla was correct and we have merely to tap into the existing energy that is the earth itself?

Isn't this why we should try to stop growing? At some future point it will have to happen anyway unless we want to ruin the planet in other ways or just wait until we actually run out of food.
There's also a yellowish-red fusion reactor that sends energy to us all the time for the next few million years or so, then we have this other cosmic friend that moves the entire water of the oceans around all the time...

I think we have plenty of natural energy sources, we just need to begin to use them. Some of the technology was already in development before WW1, that the change is a lot harder now is entirely our fault for focusing on the wrong tech all the time without thinking about the consequences. We can't realistically expect to use fossil fuels for the next 200 years even if there were no warming effects, we'll simply run out...

[Fragony]

I know that what I said is nasty Hus, but isn't it true that overpolution is a problem. And no.

[Montmorency]

Seamus:

A full-scale thermonuclear exchange would not "eliminate biodiversity" or "kill the planet". Still a bit of a wrench in our works. On the other hand, there's no such thing as a eco-sustainability race.

Regardless of how you approach it, adaptation to a new normal will be more than painful. But I just want to settle in a corner and mutter litanies until someone removes me.

I basically agree with you, but with a slant to the "hunker down" part.

Something "new" will have to be created to truly solve the problem.

There can be a "growing out" of the situation, but neither in the sense of GDP or legislative documentation. Rather, catastrophe will reach the point that the current democratic consensus will shift and new, bespoke, forms of top-down control will be birthed to match their new environment. That will be your true Second Industrial Revolution, if you like.