Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

people will have to stop driving their cars very much, even though a lot of folks live in communities that assume the use of cars.

but above all the rate of industrial growth in countries like china, russia, and india will have to flatten or decline. and i think the rate of income growth will have to decline to zero too, otherwise they are just all going to imitate the longstanding consumption habits of westerners like us and there is no surer way to wrecking the planet.

in fact, while there would be terrible economic consequences to really weaning-off coal and gas and so forth, it would also open up vast economic opportunities (just for new businesses).

this is a fact and it is what needs to happen. we subsidized the carbon industry to a ridiculous degree, now it's time to strangle that industry and subsidize something else.

all the rate of industrial growth in countries like china, russia, and india will have to flatten or decline.

there's no reason to expect them to continue growing at current rates. you know who gets hit by monsoons every year, for ex?

I think that is the wrong approach. I think China is beginning to realise that they need to grow in much more sustainable ways to give people the living standards they have come to expect. It is possible to have high living standards without the needlessly wasteful consumption that has gone with them in the west. Growth is not incompatible with sustainability and it somewhat patronising to the merging world to deny high standards of living because the western world has fucked things up.

One of the things that goes along with growth is an emerging middle class and increasing environmental concern. In china right now, the focus is, quite rightly, on air and water quality (as it was in the historical west) but I feel climate change is rising up the agenda.

that is also true. funnily enough, China's command economy is one of the few existing political environments where top-down decrees re: sustainability could actually be effectively and quickly implemented. not like our stupid democracy.

That would be a great way for the CPC to lose power.

how so

CPC isn't really into rapid changes, they've worked out that gradual works much better for them.

Also, China is willing to remain communist as long as the CPC keeps growing the economy. I's essentially a facist set-up, now, and if the party decided to mess with the country's economic growth they would run into a LOT of unrest.

It is possible to have high living standards without the needlessly wasteful consumption that has gone with them in the west.

i think such a thing would presume a degree of income equality that is the opposite of contemporary china

xpost dunno if it's "fascist," it's basically just crony capitalism to the nth degree

where rich people are literally walling themselves off from the fucked over masses.

xp upthread, tbf this is already happening in most of the world, where rich people literally live in walled-off compounds with broken glass, barbed wire, or metal spikes on top of the walls.

in Peru that describes how the middle class lives, let alone the rich

most of latin america for sure

south africa, too

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Great-Extinction/146275/

justin e.h. smith

When I heard that the air is toxic in Pecos, TX because all of the "sour gas" being released from the earth due to all the holes being made from fracking...that's the moment I felt an irreversible hopeless dread.

Just over a week ago, I was twenty miles from Pecos, TX and can confirm that the air in that part of the state smells like a large natural gas leak. I feared that if you lit a match, the entire atmosphere would catch fire.

anyone (Sanpaku?) wanna weigh in on the potential of this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-energy_with_carbon_capture_and_storage

I'm on the efficiency side of things, the engineering involved here is kinda outside my usual points of reference

eh never mind I get how biomass energy production works I was more curious about ways to actually remove CO2 from the atmosphere, which this is only partly related to

just an aside am i only the only person who hears the work "fracking" and thinks it some kind of sex act and/or lewd dance move?

battlestar galactica has taken over that word for many us i'd bet

lol otm

who are these fucking people
http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/16/skeptical-scientists-debunk-white-house-global-warming-report/

probably on the koch payroll?

"...and the Antarctic cooled slightly." Is that true? What about the western ice shelf of Antarctica collapsing?

I'm gonna go ahead and guess that every single "fact" those guys cite is some kind of distortion but idk

like what part of the Antarctic are they referring to? the land mass? the ocean? the ice shelf?

gotta step away, such infuriating bullshit

they've really got a point there that every square foot of the earth doesn't warm equally

who are these fucking people

Several people who signed the NCA rebuttal are also members of the Cornwall Alliance - a group which famously issued "An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming" in 2009:

"We believe Earth and its ecosystems – created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence – are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history."

The money trail crosses paths with dominionists, etc.

I don't believe in hell, so I'm annoyed that most of them will be dead by the time the planet is an acrid desiccated wasteland.

we will all have migrated to jupiter by then, anyway.

beyond that, i hear the triangulum and andromeda galaxies have some nice planets.

the sushi in those places is awful though

I wish the title scientist was something that could be removed by some form of professional body, possibly by reclassifying them as village idiots.

you snob!

;-)

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/05/oklahoma-legislators-block-new-science-standards-over-climate-change/

URL says it all

'Global Warming' or 'Climate Change': Does it make a difference?

Today, we are releasing a special report (based on a nationally representative experimental study) that finds the terms global warming and climate change often mean different things to Americans—and activate different sets of beliefs, feelings, and behaviors, as well as different degrees of urgency about the need to respond.

We found that the term global warming is associated with greater public understanding, emotional engagement, and support for personal and national action than the term climate change.

For example, the term global warming is associated with:

Greater certainty that the phenomenon is happening, especially among men, Generation X (31-48), and liberals;
Greater understanding that human activities are the primary cause among Independents;
Greater understanding that there is a scientific consensus about the reality of the phenomenon among Independents and liberals;
More intense worry about the issue, especially among men, Generation Y (18-30), Generation X, Democrats, liberals and moderates;
A greater sense of personal threat, especially among women, the Greatest Generation (68+), African-Americans, Hispanics, Democrats, Independents, Republicans, liberals and moderates;
Higher issue priority ratings for action by the president and Congress, especially among women, Democrats, liberals and moderates;
Greater willingness to join a campaign to convince elected officials to take action, especially among men, Generation X, liberals and moderates.

That why I personally favor the term Global Roasting.

Planet Porking

xp That sounds aromatic and delicious, though.

"Planet Porking" not so much.

not really -- I was on Planet Porking last month on my OKCupid shuttle.

the Greatest Generation (68+)

That can't be right. Greatest Generation is Depression-era kids.

uh baby boomers are totally the greatest generation didn't u get the memo

Maybe they have it mixed up with people who bought The Greatest Generation in hopes of feeling bad about themselves/basking in the reflected glow. I also sold a lot of copies to Gen Y types, confused about the historical timeline and apparently planning to bestow it honorifically on their boomer parents. So who knows.

lol

Sadly, me:

http://assets.amuniversal.com/fdcd6530c7fd01315e28005056a9545d

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/03/china-pledges-limit-carbon-emissions

cartoon otm

top right corner has been an interesting transition over the past 5-10 years. all the people now saying "sure, the climate's changing, but not b/c of humans" were the same people who only a few years ago were denying anything was changing.

sorry, top LEFT corner

http://www.climatecentral.org/images/sized/images/sized/remote/assets-climatecentral-org-images-uploads-news-6_3_14_Brian_SummerTemperatureTrends-720x405.jpg

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-summer-temperatures-climate-change-17510

Nationwide, the summer warming trend averages out to a little more than 0.4°F per decade since 1970. The places warming the fastest also happen to be some of the hottest places in the country, with a large chunk of the Southwest and all of Texas warming more than 1°F per decade.

The notable blue spot in a sea of red is the Upper Midwest, where substantial parts of Iowa and the Dakotas have seen a slight cooling trend since 1970. Interestingly, that region is actually home to some of the fastest-warming states when you look at the change in annual average temperatures. Winters in particular have warmed dramatically there over the past 40 years.

Of the 344 climate divisions, which are set by the National Climatic Data Center and divide the country into climatically-similar zones, less than 10 percent have seen a summer cooling trend. In general, every state in the lower 48 has warmed since 1970 and the most recent decade was the warmest on record for the country. Those trends are consistent with the overall warming that has been observed for the planet as greenhouse gases emitted by humans build up in the atmosphere.