Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

Think of the ecological range. Humans have lived in places that were inhospitable to either rats or cockroaches (whether tundra or desert).

Or, y’know, in orbit

Greta Thunberg is such an amazing orator.

History is a graveyard of once prosperous civilizations. Most were felled by smaller stressors than 3-4 °C.

Is this true? Honest question cos I'm certainly no expert, but weren't most civilizations bought down after coming up against other civilizations. I know some smaller ones might have been felled by calamitous ecological events.

Or, like, a combination of those things?

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is set to announce on Thursday that it intends to sharply curtail the regulation of methane emissions, a major contributor to climate change, according to an industry official with knowledge of the plan.

The Environmental Protection Agency, in a proposed rule, will aim to eliminate federal requirements that oil and gas companies install technology to inspect for and fix methane leaks from wells, pipelines and storage facilities.

The proposed rollback is particularly notable because several major energy companies have, in fact, opposed it — just as other industrial giants have opposed previous administration initiatives to dismantle climate-change and environmental rules. Some of the world’s largest auto companies have opposed Mr. Trump’s plans to let vehicles pollute more, and a number of electric utilities have opposed the relaxation of restrictions on toxic mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants.

...Over all, carbon dioxide is the most significant greenhouse gas, but methane is a close second. It lingers in the atmosphere for a shorter period of time but packs a bigger punch while it lasts. By some estimates, methane has 80 times the heating-trapping power of carbon dioxide in the first 20 years in the atmosphere.

Methane currently makes up nearly 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. A significant portion of that comes from the oil and gas sector.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/climate/epa-methane-greenhouse-gas.html

amazing when even the corporations who stand to profit massively from this look back and say "uhhh this might not be a great idea"

Not that there was any question about it, but that's pure one-dimensional villainy.

btw, not that I’m doing my part or anything, that’s for sure, but the failure of any sort of mass protest to materialize against all of this is sad. There was some nice energy during the first few weeks of the trump administration, I guess.
What can be done, though? Even the fucking oil companies are against this. Obviously the trump admin doesn’t care what anyone thinks, it’s just about doing the opposite of whatever Obama would want.

History is a graveyard of once prosperous civilizations.

From what I can see, the whole notion of a 'civilization' is somewhat nebulous to begin with, but even though it is a common approach it is probably not a good idea to conflate civilizations with empire. Empires generally bring prosperity through conquest and can in their turn be conquered from the outside or lost through attrition.

Having a civilization seems to require at least maintaining some cities, along with a certain amount of specialization, complexity, and social and economic integration that comes with city life. A civilization that has reached the higher levels of complexity can become badly eroded, but once the rudimentary levels of city life are attained they are rarely lost entirely.

Under Under $250 per wireless wellhead methane leak sensor50 per wireless wellhead methane leak sensor is feasible, given demand.

I’ve def got locked into “this will be caught up in the courts for months to years” syndrome xp

xp: Don't know why the power point presentation didn't link, so here's another try.

Even on low output old wells, $250 is a drop in the bucket. On modern fracking sites, where 2-16 horizontal wells are drilled from the same pad, its less than the cost of a single technician visit. Presumably reuseable as old non-productive wells are capped.

https://i.imgur.com/0568GBG.png

f Rod Barclay or other firefighters get the call that a house is ablaze in the north-western NSW town of Warren, chances are they won't bother to put it out.

"Our priority is to save lives first, save water second," Barclay says on Thursday outside Warren's two-tanker fire station.

Should one of the town's typical three-bedroom weatherboard homes ignite, Fire and Rescue NSW crews will only turn their hoses on the fire if they have to rescue anyone inside. Otherwise it will be sacrificed and water used merely to spray neighbouring homes if flames threaten to spread.

"Warren is the first location in which we're undertaking this new strategy," says Gary Barber, the Dubbo-based Fire & Rescue commander. "We could easily waste a couple of thousand litres on a house that's going to be lost," he says. "That water can certainly be used much better elsewhere in the community."

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/we-ll-be-bathing-in-salt-water-at-the-epicentre-of-australia-s-big-drought-20190828-p52lsx.html

the bad and hated franzen essay in the new yorker mentioned a newish book by naomi oreskes (co-author of merchants of doubt, about the half-century long global warming disinformation campaign) and michael oppenheimer (climate policy guru). it's called Discerning Experts, and i'm excited to read it. there's a short bloggins about it at scientific american (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/scientists-have-been-underestimating-the-pace-of-climate-change/), but this seems to sum it up:

In our new book, Discerning Experts, we explored the workings of scientific assessments for policy, with particular attention to their internal dynamics, as we attempted to illuminate how the scientists working in assessments make the judgments they do. Among other things, we wanted to know how scientists respond to the pressures—sometimes subtle, sometimes overt—that arise when they know that their conclusions will be disseminated beyond the research community—in short, when they know that the world is watching. The view that scientific evidence should guide public policy presumes that the evidence is of high quality, and that scientists’ interpretations of it are broadly correct. But, until now, those assumptions have rarely been closely examined.

We found little reason to doubt the results of scientific assessments, overall. We found no evidence of fraud, malfeasance or deliberate deception or manipulation. Nor did we find any reason to doubt that scientific assessments accurately reflect the views of their expert communities. But we did find that scientists tend to underestimate the severity of threats and the rapidity with which they might unfold.

Among the factors that appear to contribute to underestimation is the perceived need for consensus, or what we label univocality: the felt need to speak in a single voice. Many scientists worry that if disagreement is publicly aired, government officials will conflate differences of opinion with ignorance and use this as justification for inaction. Others worry that even if policy makers want to act, they will find it difficult to do so if scientists fail to send an unambiguous message. Therefore, they will actively seek to find their common ground and focus on areas of agreement; in some cases, they will only put forward conclusions on which they can all agree.

How does this lead to underestimation? Consider a case in which most scientists think that the correct answer to a question is in the range 1–10, but some believe that it could be as high as 100. In such a case, everyone will agree that it is at least 1–10, but not everyone will agree that it could be as high as 100. Therefore, the area of agreement is 1–10, and this is reported as the consensus view. Wherever there is a range of possible outcomes that includes a long, high-end tail of probability, the area of overlap will necessarily lie at or near the low end. Error bars can be (and generally are) used to express the range of possible outcomes, but it may be difficult to achieve consensus on the high end of the error estimate.

The push toward agreement may also be driven by a mental model that sees facts as matters about which all reasonable people should be able to agree versus differences of opinion or judgment that are potentially irresolvable. If the conclusions of an assessment report are not univocal, then (it may be thought that) they will be viewed as opinions rather than facts and dismissed not only by hostile critics but even by friendly forces. The drive toward consensus may therefore be an attempt to present the findings of the assessment as matters of fact rather than judgment.

last week the Washington Post ran this really interesting piece based on county-level temperature change data for the Lower 48 over the past 120+ years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climate-environment/climate-change-america/.

Their map shows that a little slice of SW Virginia, East KY, East TN and West Virginia is one of the exceptions to the heating-up rule that has smothered most of the rest of the country. In fact, it’s the northern-most concentrated band of cooling in the U.S. Among other counties Wise, Lee, Letcher and Harlan all got cooler between 1895 and 2018. Do any of you know why that is???

i don't know the specifics but i'd imagine it's related to the terrain?

i don't think that's knowable at this point

apparently ~gaia~ is suggesting i move back to pittsburgh tho

that's like a corner of the Appalachian plateaus that borders the Ridge-and-Valley province

It's a golden age for comic PSAs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lPpUj9Sx9k

climate strike seemed pretty massive today at least in nyc

Thoughts on Greta Thunberg's tour of the US? I feel like today's screenshot of her at the UN looking furious and crying is not helping.

I hope it inspires homegrown youth to be the face of activism.

Anyone under 50 should be furious, and elderly deniers should feel our wrath.

Making a teenager carry the weight of speaking for the future of the planet seems like an undue burden for her to carry. She's doing as well as anyone else her age could do.

yeah, she's not the problem by any stretch

I thought that speech was on fire.

Since the 'politely ask for moderate progress in reducing emissions' tactic has been a complete failure she/we may as well go for broke now. I get the feeling the next 2-3 decades are going to be like watching the walls crumbling in on a condemned building in environmental terms, and you wonder when those responsible are going to realise how much wealth they ultimately stand to lose. That, if nothing else, will bring it home.

I also don't care if people shed tears while angry. xpost

And yes her speech was A++, as always.

Thoughts on Greta Thunberg's tour of the US? I feel like today's screenshot of her at the UN looking furious and crying is not helping.

― akm, Monday, September 23, 2019 10:41 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

what is helping

message board post

This was the line that just completely sums it all up.

We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth.

yup

"growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell" - Edward Abbey

and yet, you can't be taken seriously in public life unless you subscribe to the idea of endless economic growth

all this endless economic growth is leveraged on the cryogenically frozen bodies of corrupt men.

I feel like economic growth might be misunderstood here but I agree with her sentiment.

what do you mean?

Like for example, I don’t think raising literacy rates around the world is hurting the environment.

...

1) I think its past time time for this thread to retired. Maybe to be replaced by two threads "Climate crisis: the politics" and "Climate crisis: the science".

2)

Greta Thunberg @GretaThunberg · 22h
I have moved on from this climate thing... From now on I will be doing death metal only!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLxpgRqxtEA

Idiot: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/06/teacher-leave-sniper-rifle-comment-greta-thunberg/3893160002/

Rising seas could affect three times more people by 2050 than previously thought, according to new research, threatening to all but erase some of the world’s great coastal cities.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/29/climate/coastal-cities-underwater.html

Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to “tell it like it is.” On the basis of this obligation and the graphical indicators presented below, we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency.

https://i.imgur.com/F9lXomN.jpg

https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biz088/5610806

You know, more than before I’ve been struggling with this.

And... we can all have different views and we all process stuff in our own way and part of the shock is even talking about this forces the conversation to accept your premise. That being at turns, alienating, confusing and isolating.

So if you’re not there yet, or never will be, just take it as a thought exercise...

Likelihood of Extinction is within 2 standard deviations.

...

I don’t even know what act accordingly looks like.

https://i.imgur.com/sBpv6dJ.png

i think during the 2020s we should make it a goal to get the correct answer % up into the 20-30 range. then, by the time that number gets up to 50% or higher, we can go back to the 1980s and do something about climate change in time

What do people think about this?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/11/25/why-everything-they-say-about-climate-change-is-wrong

the very first thing i think is

forbes.com

I've been arguing online with people that think we're going into a Venus runaway warming for 15 years. There's definitely a segment of climate action proponents that leapfrog past the predictions of modelers, or don't choose their words with the care required. When the world doesn't end in 2030, some will think the whole enterprise was a hoax.

That said, before Thanksgiving I fed my newborn niece Elizabeth for 30 minutes, and will looking at her eyes, I couldn't banish the thought that while I may see +2° C warming, she'll very likely see +3, +4, and if she's long-lived perhaps +5° C. I think I have a clearer idea of what that means than most, as I've been climate aware for 30 years, and studying the primary literature for over the past 15 years. If she lives to 2100, she'll live in a world that, barring crop engineering miracles, produces 60-80% less food. That's a recipe for civil and global conflict, migration crises, and starvation of many in presently developed countries. Elizabeth is going to be very, very angry with us for knowing and doing too little. And most of that carbon remains resident for centuries, enough remains to significantly perturb the climate for up to 10 millennia. 100+ generations of humans will be subject to the constrained global human carrying capacity that a handful of generations created.

Climate change action requires a complex argument, and one centered around timespans that humans didn't evolve to appreciate. Arguing "apocalypse if we don't take (now) impossible actions in the next 11 years" may ultimately harm action. The truth is, we're on a trajectory to a dramatically worse for humans state which will persist for thousands of years, and every act (including personal) to increase emissions makes that end state incrementally worse, and every act to decrease emissions makes it incrementally less bad.

I'm worried that the population (not just the US but the population of the entire world now) only responds to hyperbole and extremes.