Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

Average daily temperatures in the Arctic this year have been up to 20C higher than average

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/27/arctic-warming-scientists-alarmed-by-crazy-temperature-rises

xpost

I've long believed that global warming will be faster and worse than standard projections, because the insane right-wing attacks on climate scientists would intimidate them and cause them to lowball all their estimates of what will happen https://t.co/qVXhjEDe78

— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) February 27, 2018

there are some political factors that contribute to conservative projections (e.g., the summary IPCC document must have unanimous consent, and the Bush-era US delegation refused to sign on unless certain sections were watered down). but generally i don't think that intimidation from the right-wing plays a significant role.

the projections tend to be conservative primarily because that's the nature of the scientific method, especially in a field that largely relies on models with components that are not fully understood. there are some significant "known unknowns" which are suspected to strongly contribute to warming, particularly feedback loops like the albedo effect, methane from thawing permafrost, methane from the oceanfloor, etc. climate scientists have had some difficulty incorporating the effects of these feedback loops into the climate models because all of the complex ways they interact with each other aren't fully understood yet. the way the earth is consistently warming at the very high edge of the projections (and beyond them in some cases) seems to confirm the hunches of many of the people working on the feedback loops, but it takes time to work these things through the good ol' scientific method.

good post

Um ok scared now

thx Karl, we rely on u

also, COMPLETELY counter to the right wing's caricatures of climate scientists as alarmists who want to scare people (in order to...profit?), when pieces on worse case scenarios and the dire end of the projection spectrum contain anything resembling an overstatement, the scientific community are very proactive about issuing corrections and caveats. see a prominent article that appeared last year and the backlash:

New York Magazine: The Uninhabitable Earth
Ars Technica: Climate scientists push back against catastrophic scenarios

i don't know shit climate change now, if i ever did. it's been years since i followed it on a daily basis. i'm one of those people who got too depressed and can't really deal with it any more. the "response" to climate change, at least in the US, is a perfect storm of dire scientific predictions vs capitalism, corruption, lies, willful ignorance, and other human weaknesses in all their terrible varieties. it's depressing as hell and it's difficult to function even when you try not to think about it too much.

i sometimes find myself encouraged by the most dire predictions because i feel like 'we' deserve it

which is revolting because i will not be among the people who suffer from it

i am a bad and solipsistic person

The climate issue, to the degree it isn't simply about the salvation of civilization, is essentially about equity between generations (and secondarily as distributed across nations to the extent they have developed at different rates). It's about us primarily to the degree to which we're nearly the last people in a position to act on it in an effective way in recognition of our obligations to future citizens (or in anticipation of how we'll be remembered by them). I don't think they would substantially distinguish between reasons not to think about it.

I hate it. I live an ascetic life compared to most Americans, but I know my lifestyle isn't sustainable. Almost no one's is. I read the primary literature, and hence know that food security for *everyone* is at risk. Hundreds of millions will starve due to climate change before much of Miami Beach floods. Some 19 years ago I decided I would never procreate, because any life I created in the developed world would be several lost in the developing world.

Even if the world kept to Paris Accord commitments, that's a trajectory to 3.5° C mean warming, before feedbacks from permafrost/peat/etc. Negative emissions energy like biofuel with CCS are pipe dreams at the moment, and that's what most of the planners are relying upon.

It feels like the back car of a roller coaster, ascending the chain lift, and the front car is suspended over the drop but the chain hasn't released. It's the stomach churning feeling of knowing what's about to happen, but the screaming hasn't started yet. But its all going to be in slow motion. Even those born today won't see the worst. A couple centuries of ever increasing temperatures, worse storms, shifting precipitation, and intermittent global famines. Then several millennia of encroaching seas, even once the climate has reached its new equilibria.

This will change humanity, even if something like our civilization perseveres. A few billion surviving, many in former tundra. Leaving the world better than one finds it will become a paramount moral virtue. In the future, people will be executed for doing things that I do daily, like running coal-powered air-conditioning or starting internal combustion engines. It's all so disheartening.

At least we’ll die sooner

Some 19 years ago I decided I would never procreate, because any life I created in the developed world would be several lost in the developing world.

― It's because I'm human, isn't it?! (Sanpaku), Thursday, March 1, 2018 4:44 AM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Personally, I'm largely of the same attitude towards reproduction, among other climate-friendly stances that are easy expressions of lifestyle preference ungrounded in philosophy/morality, but putting aside the fact that my partners have not always shared the same attitude, I've also considered the possibility that the political impact of one's progeny may outweigh the environmental impact of their existence and lifestyle. Have you asked how many lives they might save?

Its a bit late for me now.

Some people are born pessimists. Normal folk don't spend their idle hours delving into the climate change or resource depletion or geological extinction event literature. It changes a person, and time steals opportunities. The grey comes, and there's just compassion for others left. I don't want to "infect" others with my disposition, and I try to banish my premonitions when I play with my nephew.

There's always been a role for Cassandras, the ones who worried when the ground rumbled, and told their peers to depart the volcano's slopes. But its never been a happy one.

i like that attitude, Moo

I've also considered the possibility that the political impact of one's progeny may outweigh the environmental impact of their existence and lifestyle. Have you asked how many lives they might save?

excuse snark but, lol, potentially a bit of pressure transmitting itself to the wee mite there, no? "This child, Moo Junior... she is the Chosen. She has nits, just as the Prophecy foretells."

I think you've just given more thought to parenting a hypothetical Moo, Jr. than I ever have

pray
for
moo-ju

i am a child-haver and i have already rehearsed my "you may want to join a resistance movement in solidarity with oppressed people bc the world is going to suck when you're older" speech, its v good, i figure 7th birthday is a goodtime

Reading my 5yo a book at the moment which she chose from the library and which features a villain who wants to melt the ice caps to sell fresh water to rich people. It keeps on mentioning global warming, reasonably enough, but I elide those bits because I am genuinely horrified at the idea of explaining what this all will mean for her. Worse than when she realised dinosaurs aren't around any more.

The public seems to not trust the scientific method. Perhaps in schools we need to teach less science facts and less how to DO science. - How to check your sources, how to think critically. How to be skeptical.

I can imagine the history books of the future "At that time many did not believe that the climate was changing and being influenced by human activity" - we will seem like such fools

if there are books or a civilization that sustains a written record and scholarship, anyway

The history books will report, "Science was respected, but wasn't a major source of funding for political campaigns and media manipulation. Scientific culture of the time required reticence in official statements, which were often couched in jargon-filled reports, and read by few. Any climate scientist that reported, "If we don't make decarbonization the global priority now, some of our grandchildren, even in developed nations, will starve during coming climate famines, and home-grown fascism will arise to expel the masses of climate refugees," she would have been seen as an alarmist by scientific peers. Political leaders were largely ignorant of scientific details, but chose to listen to cornocopian climate working groups which postulated imaginary negative emissions technologies, like biomass with carbon capture and storage."

plus many assume that geo-engineering will solve all the problems

Science was respected

is this actually true

feel like a lot of people don't give a shit about science rn

and definitely average joe seems to have zero interest in improving their scientific / mathematical literacy

well, any kind of literacy really

I have more faith in technology to solve this problem than in politicians - also public fear/responsibility and consumer choices

demoans of coal and ash - simmering in filth - gaggin on their own dollars will rot away in the history of huamnkind - looking back at roaches who will be history's slime

Geoengineering will work, and with remarkably few side effects. The problem is that once we've gone down that path, we're chained to the thermostat for the next few thousand years. A lapse in constantly injecting sulfate aerosols, from budget cutbacks, or societal collapse, means that all the climatic effects of anthropogenic climate change will be compressed into a few years.

Civilizational collapse is common in history. In the past, it was mostly localized, leaving reservoirs of knowledge. But, if we continue down the A1FI scenario path (fossil intensive growth), that's a 6+ °C mean warming. We could prevent most ground level effects with a couple U2 squadrons constantly depositing sulfate aerosols in the stratophere. But when (not if) that's interrupted, its 6+ °C in 2-3 years, probably in a world that isn't prepared for it. Civilizational collapse becomes global.

Also there's the law of unintended consequences, whereby injecting all that shit into the air will inevitably lead to complex unmodelable conditions causing who knows what other problems.

http://i.imgur.com/6ODkDyK.jpg

I bet the sea is thinking "fuck 'em"

Geoengineering will work, and with remarkably few side effects

this is an egregiously bold statement

by the very nature of the thing geoengineering is not something that can be tested in a real world setting, and has to be completely based on theoretical calculations

since i live in the southwest i'm quite concerned about water issues, but this morning we had a guest speaker in my classroom who works on desalination, reclamation and atmospheric capture and when he left i was feeling quite optimistic about it

technology is grebt fuiud

what good will all the water in the world be when only machines rule the land!

this is an egregiously bold statement

Compared to say a 5 °C warming and half the world starving, the side effects are relatively small. It's not an ideal band-aid for the problem, but by later this century when the globe has overspent its carbon budget and consequences keep piling up, leaders will be desperate for any means to staunch the bleeding.

We have natural experiments with stratospheric sulfate injections with every major volcanic eruption. The main worries in the literature about direct adverse effects are that those sulfates will fall as acid rain, but models indicate the levels will be too small to have much effect, and that it will increase ozone depletion during polar winters, though here a study indicates it will slow ozone recovery, rather than cause worldwide depletion.

The indirect effects, of ocean acidification from continued CO2 emissions, or the potential for catastrophic interruptions to long-term geoengineering, seem much larger.

im not against geoengineering when it comes down to it, but it would be preferable if we avoided the need for it than to have to rely on it being successful and without major implications in order to survive as a species

it me

http://www.cinema52.com/2013/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/MalcolmExperiment2.png

i am with you

and jeff goldblum

i am also laura dern

If i have to get bad news i prefer it from sanpaku tbh he doesnt set off my bs detector (which i know is not necessarily reliable anyway, but still)

I'm not in favor of geoengineering, per se. I just see it as inevitable.

We're on a pretty lousy trajectory. If countries adhered to Paris Accord commitments, that's committing the world to 3-3.5° C warming, before considering poorly contrained positive feedbacks. IF nativist know-nothings come to power elsewhere in the world, an ever increasing likelihood as the climate refugee crisis grows, even that's questionable. Every scenario to keep below 2° C relies heavily on negative emissions technologies, which may not be feasible, have huge parasitic/efficiency losses, have never existed at scale, and would require reallocating large parts of the planet away from food production or Nature. When one delves, so much hope for non-horrific resolutions just seems cosmetic, political cover for business as usual.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chsas3u8k-k

By the way, do check out the Understanding Climate Change channel on YouTube, where I found that Kevin Anderson talk, if you haven't.

John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, has killed an effort by the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to stage public debates challenging climate change science, according to three people familiar with the deliberations, thwarting a plan that had intrigued President Trump even as it set off alarm bells among his top advisers.

The idea of publicly critiquing climate change on the national stage has been a notable theme for Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the E.P.A. For nearly a year he has championed the notion of holding military-style exercises known as red team, blue team debates, possibly to be broadcast live, to question the validity of climate change.

Mr. Pruitt has spoken personally with Mr. Trump about the idea, and the president expressed enthusiasm for it, according to people familiar with the conversations.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/climate/pruitt-red-team-climate-debate-kelly.html

there's only one person i loathe as much as scott pruitt

this is sad to read, esp. from McKibben, who usually manages to sneak in a bit of optimism into even the most dire assessments.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-climate-activists-failed-to-make-clear-the-problem-with-natural-gas-mckibben

The idea that natural gas combats climate change is a sleight of hand. But explaining why appears to be just slightly too technical for it ever to get across, in the media or on Capitol Hill, in statehouses or city halls. Still, I’ll try one more time.

It’s true that when you burn natural gas in a power plant, you emit less carbon dioxide than when you burn coal — for simplicity’s sake, let’s say half as much. That sounds good, since carbon is the main contributor to climate change. It’s what allowed President Obama to boast in his 2014 State of the Union address that “Over the past eight years, the United States has reduced our total carbon pollution more than any other nation on Earth.” He added, “One of the reasons why is natural gas — if extracted safely, it’s the bridge fuel that can power our economy with less of the carbon pollution that causes climate change.” In fact, his administration was so fond of fracking that the State Department set up an entire agency whose only task was to spread the technology to other countries.

Here’s the trouble: carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas, but it’s not the only one. Another one — present in smaller amounts, but far more potent — is CH4, otherwise known as methane, the primary component of natural gas. If you burn natural gas, you get less carbon dioxide than with coal. But any methane that escapes unburned into the atmosphere on the way to the power plant warms the planet very effectively — so effectively that if you leak more than 2 or 3 percent it’s worse for climate change than coal.

It turns out that there are lots of places for leaks to happen — when you frack a field, when you connect a pipe, when you send gas thousands of miles through pumping stations — and so most studies show that the leakage rate is at least 3 percent and probably higher. What that means is: America has cut its carbon emissions, but only at the cost of dramatically increasing its methane emissions. It means that what we’ve done is run in place.

...We picked the worst possible strategy we could have used to combat climate change. We didn’t know it at first, but as the chemistry became clear no one wanted to change course. Most of them doubled down. I have no confidence that we will ever manage to get this message across, though it is magnificent to see the continuing efforts of local activists across the country. (Check out this new video from Josh Fox, of Gasland fame, in New Orleans) But it’s not in the interest of anyone in power to concede the facts about natural gas. It’s possible — likely even — that this essay, and everything else I or anyone else writes and says on the topic, is so much shouting into the (increasingly hot and gusty) wind. On this we’ve so far failed, and the failure has had huge consequences.

fuck

i already excerpted way too much of a relatively short article, but the parts i snipped out are about democrats and even many environmentalists fell into the trap.

anyway, nothing new here - when obama started talking about an "all of the above energy approach" i ripped my entrails out through my throat and whipped them against the window pane repeatedly before letting out a bloodcurdling horror scream that caused a traffic accident two blocks away, in my dreams - but we're now at the stage where people like mckibben have started talking about the great natural gas fuckup in the past tense, rather than something to be avoided:

"if we hadn’t discovered fracked natural gas, the effort to deal with climate change would have moved us far more quickly into renewables; instead, we’ve wasted a decade and likely far more, since all those new pipelines and power plants are designed (and financed) to last for 40 or 50 years. "

yeah, i don't even know what to say anymore tbh, it's so clear to anyone who cares to look that we as a species have fucked ourselves so thoroughly, and so avoidably

one thing's for sure, i picked a great time to start a family

dont know if youre being glib but yeah you fuckin did, we need more kids raised by parents who gaf about the climate