climate change thread

[psiberzerker]

I also wrote significantly more than that. It's there in black and white if you go back and read it. How do you think you sound when you're calling me ignorant only because you haven't bothered to read and understand my posts? Like a bellend maybe?

Calling people Bellend, in the middle of a fun, and fascinating discussion of thermodynamics make you sound like a namecalling troll.  For some reason.  So yeah, it pissed me off, because that's where namecalling belongs, in an argument.

If you have anything scientific to add to the discussion of thermodynamics, I'm sure we'd all like to hear it.

Until then, your petty little point is moot.

Ps:  You totally aren't trying to show everyone how smart you are, droning on intellectually about the je ne se quoi of calling a dickhead a bellend.  At least try not to exemplify the mental masturbation you accuse me of.  That's Joan's favorite strategy.

[psiberzerker]

Let me ask you this:

If I gave a cintillafuck about how smart everyone thought I was, then why in the fuck would I stay in an environment where someone earns infinitely (+2) more positive feedback for calling me a bellend than I and Ropefiend get combined for talking technically as Engineers about the thermodynamics of the climate?  I'm not the one that openly admits being motivated soley by Spite.  (#Resist)

I value the intellectual acknowledgement of scientists, engineers, artists, and emotional therapists.  My peers, not daddy/daughter incest fetishists, and political trolls.  If I want my big brain acknowledged, there's plenty of scientific sites I can post to.  if I wanted high 5s from trolls, I'd still be arguing the Rules of the Internet on 4chan, and I got bored with that 30 years ago.

I come here to read and write smut stories.  If you want to insult me, and make it stick, than call me a bad writer.  Congratulations, yet again you (And your peers) found 2 people having a technical discussion, and reduced it to your level of middleschool name calling.  You turned yet another interesting discussion into a fight.  You've bullied me yet again for daring to say anything of substance.

You brag about your open contempt for anyone that even claims to have 2 neurons to rub together.  YTF would I care what you think about my intelligence?

[Athos_131]

You're a bellend (note similar in literal meaning to dickhead, but bellend has a certain je ne sais quoi to it) because I'm not a climate skeptic and I was posting in defense of Bill Nye. If you weren't in so much of a hurry to tell everyone how smart you are you might have read my posts properly and figured it out all on your own. Maybe.

Sorry, you can't repeat a karma action without waiting 24 hours.

 

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

Sorry, you can't repeat a karma action without waiting 24 hours.

 

#Resist

^The guy that's only here out of spite, and has been so long, he's forgotten why he ever actually liked this site in the first place.

[Athos_131]

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

You inserted yourself into the mostly civil discussion RopeFiend and I were having, went out of your way to try to make me look foolish, failed and made it very easy for me to turn the tables on you.

I was having a technical discussion with Ropefiend, which had fuckall to do with me being a bellend.  Civil or not, you had nothing technical to add to the discussion, besides pop culture references.  Your civil discussion, and my technical discussion can coexist in the same thread, if you can manage to let me speak without making this yet another thread about how smart, and under-appreciated my big brain is.  IDGAFF how smart you think I am, so telling me as much has as little affect as it always did.

Ropefiend is plenty intelligent, and eloqent to handle your civil discussion, and my technical discussion at the same time, I assure you.

I haven't read any of your writing, but I don't read the stories on KB.

Then give up on hurting my feelings.  I'm here as a smut writer, not an expert on anything.

If you're finished with your tantrum I would prefer to allow the thread to continue in regards to climate change, as intended.

If you're done belittling me, then I can go back to talking about the science, and not the scientists.  It takes two argue, but only 1 to go fuck yourself.

[RopeFiend]

Well, it looks like the predictions of a Solar Minimum were exactly that: wild guesses that didn't pan out.  For the last 5 months the radio flux has been slowly rising, and the 10.7cm radio waves are a reasonably good predictor of what the spots are going to do, historically.  It could still reverse itself and head down to a Minimum (and planet-wide cooling), but I'm not betting on it this cycle.

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression

A good Solar Minimum would offset the heating caused by the stronger El Niños vs. weaker La Niñas we've had the last 40 years.

https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/typical-average-el-nino-traditional-el-nino-and-el-nino-modoki-events/

[psiberzerker]

Well, it looks like the predictions... were exactly that: wild guesses that didn't pan out.

Still clinging to that, huh?  No scientist stood up there with an envelope, and Prophecied:



Projections aren't Prediction, nor Prophecies.  They say "If the current Co2 levels aren't rectified, Then global temperatures Can rise by this much, over this period of time."

That's a scientific statement.  Anybody can write "Hysteria" on a graph to make it say whatever they want.  That's the opposite of a Scientific Statement, it's an Emotional Argument.

A good Solar Minimum would offset the heating caused by the stronger El Niños vs. weaker La Niñas we've had the last 40 years.

Is that a Prediction, or a Projection?  Yes, it could have an affect.  So could a La Niña year.  However, if we don't measure the Solar Minimum yea with any more accuracy than "Good," than we can't project the reversal with the degree of accuracy of "40 Years."  GIGO.  Projections are based on Data, and an understanding of how Factors (Plural) work in the overall equation.



That^ is the graph for another Factor, which you didn't take into account.

[Lois]

It is possible for global warming to end in disaster. Read about the Permian extinction to get an idea.  Of course that was fueled by volcanic eruptions, but it could spiral from any rapid warming.

But the immediate concern is sea level rise, and farmlands becoming non-productive, leading to widespread hunger.

I'd rather focus on ways to put the brakes on the whole process than to "wait and see."

[psiberzerker]

This:



Is El Niño.  Yes, it can affect the whether, but no, it is not the only significant factor.  Looks pretty big on that map, huh?  Well, it isn't even a significant portion of the Pacific, in the years where it's even a factor.

That's not it.  That's not something you can point to, and blame ALL of Global Warming on.  

The Solar Cycle is 11 years.  We've been tracking Global Warming for over 3 consecutive Solar Minimums.  It wasn't enough to magically wipe away 40 years of Pollution, either.

[RopeFiend]

It is possible for global warming to end in disaster. Read about the Permian extinction to get an idea.  Of course that was fueled by volcanic eruptions, but it could spiral from any rapid warming.

The jury is still out on the Permian extinction.  There's a HUGE fucking hole in Oz from a 4-5km asteroid right around then, as well as the enormous lava fields in Siberia.  Both are within about 100,000 years of the extinction, as I recall.  Both causes would have resulted in rapid global COOLING, not warming.  Neither was caused by CO2 rise, which I keep repeating is utterly swamped compared to the effects of water vapor in the atmosphere.  CO2 rise from volcanoes might be impressive, but ultimately still not a greenhouse event.

Psi, I'm not going to respond to you since you nit-pick on details.  Here's why I demur:
https://archive.org/details/AlanWatts-OnBeingVague-Kqed-1959

[psiberzerker]

Psi, I'm not going to respond to you since you nit-pick on details.

Details like "CO2 is utterly swamped by Water Vapor?"  That's not "Nitpicking Details," that the basis of your argument, and it's not true.  How much Water Vapor is in the atmosphere of Venus?  I'm not being vague, I'm not nitpicking details, there's 2 Allotropes of Water Vapor in the Atmosphere, and they have 2 different effects on Albedo.

That's not "Nitpicking Details," it's stating the facts.  Saying "The jury is still out on the Permian Extinction" is vague.  There's no conclusion that can be drawn from a crater in the desert, it just obscures someone else's point.  Just like saying "You nitpick points," so therefore what I'm saying is untrue, here's a PSA from the 50s.  Who says it, and how it is argued doesn't change the facts, the basis for the argument.  It just makes them vague.

Cloud Cover is not a greenhouse gas, it reflects sunlight back out to space, about as efficiently as Glacial cover.  (Another allotrope of Water.)  We don't have any control over the Condensation of Water Vapor, that's a natural phenomena.  

We do have control over the Carbondioxide we put into the atmosphere, and it is a greenhouse gas.  Which utterly swamps a warm spot in the Pacific that doesn't happen every year.  Those are Facts, not Details.  Ignoring them doesn't make them go away, and saying it isn't so doesn't change the truth.

[psiberzerker]

That out of the way, I'm going to continue talking as if he's not listening, but someone else might be reading this:

Runaway effects

There are several effects of Global Warming which make it worse, by changing the Albedo (The amount of energy coming into the Atmosphere that's greater than the ammount of energy released back into space, as light.)  

Water Vapor:  Water is volatile, so it evaporates more, the hotter the oceans are.  More energy (Sunlight) comes in, the more is absorbed by the ocean surface, and the more Water Vapor evaporates into the atmosphere.  Also, the more rainfall we can expect when it cools, and condenses.  Also, the more snowfall we can expect when it cools, and condenses in winter, over a cold enough area.  (Like Antarctica.)  Note, that Condensing, and precipitation are caused by Cooling.  The warmer the air is, the more Humidity it can hold, and the more Infrared (The light emitted from the warm surface) it can absorb.

Deglaciation:  Glaciers reflect sunlight from the surface, much like condensed cloud cover reflects it before it hits the surface.  They are also not pure water, they contain dissolved gasses from thousands to millions (If they're old enough) of years in the past, including Carbon Dioxide, and Methane (Another greenhouse gas which reacts with Oxygen, to make Carbon Dioxide, and Water Vapor.)  Also, they sequestor water out of the Oceans, which is why as the Ice caps melt, the sea levels rise, and so does the Albedo.  Open water absorbs more sunlight than the Glaciers reflected back into space.

This is how "Runaway Greenhouse Effects" work.  A little extra sunlight from a little extra Carbondioxide is enough to tip the balance.  "Give me a long enough lever, and a fulcrum to set it on, and I can move the world."  Sunlight is the lever, the energy coming in to be absorbed, or released back into space (As Infrared.)  Carbon Dioxide is the Fulcrum.  It looks like a little point, but where you put it on the lever determines how much it affects that balance.

Most importantly, it's where we Stand in relation to Albedo.  Whether we're sliding the C02:02 ratio towards one end, or another.  That's how we're shifting the balance, from cooling to warming.  We aren't at the Tipping point yet, but we can see it approaching.  The more water vapor the warming causes to evaporate, and the more Glaciers we cause to melt, the more the sea levels will rise, and the faster that tipping point approaches.

That's why CO2 is so important.  Not because it's the most significant factor (There's too many factors for 1 to govern it) but because it's the one we have the most Control over.  It's how we can change the atmosphere, and take control of the climate.  If we have any dreams of moving to Mars, we have to learn how to control Climate.  If we want to make Venus liveable, we have to come up with solutions to a Runaway Greenhouse effect.

If we want to keep living Here, on Earth, we need to stop shitting on it, until it's unliveable.  Not just the climate, all of it.  We need to stop polluting, while there's still a world that's literally perfect for us to live on.

[psiberzerker]

Human Effects

This is more about what We can do, as a specie, to take control over it.  Right now, we aren't taking Responsibility for our pollution, we're making excuses for it.  (Warning, this is complicated, and full of Details)

Heat

Again, it's not just Greenhouse Gasses, but how they get there.  Thermodynamically, you can't get energy from nowhere, only change energy from one form to another.  That's the first rule.  The second rule is you can't even break even, whenever you change one form of energy into another, what's left is changed to Heat.  

That's why turning the Chemical energy into Mechanical energy in an internal combustion engine makes it hot.  It's not just the explosions of fuel, and air in each piston, every quarter cycle (In a 4 stroke Otto cycle) but also friction, and even reciprocation (The piston stopping, and turning around 8 times per cycle) that causes losses, which are released as Heat.  

This is where we get into Efficiency, and Inefficiency.  Basically what's driving this macro-effect with micro-effects.  It's less efficient to refine crude oil, ship it to gas stations, and put them in our cars so we can burn them.  (It makes Money, and literally drives the Economy, though.)  When it gets to the gas tank, it's a measure of the Complexity of the system, how many times energy is changed from one form to another.  

In the fuel pump, mechanical energy is changed into hydraulic energy (And heat.)  In the Radiator, electricity is changed into mechanical energy, which is changed into pressure to pump coolant through the engine, then back out to the radiator, where it can be blown away by the fan.  In the Alternator, mechanical energy is changed into Electricity to charge the battery, which changes chemical (Lead Ions) into electricity, to run the radiator...

And the Air Conditioner, the Satnav, your phone plugged into the cigarette lighter, and make the windows go up, and down.  (And heat.)  Put together, the entire system makes the whole thing go forward, while there's a hydraulic pump to squeeze ceramic plates against a steel disk to absorb that energy, and make you stop.  (Releasing all that mass, slowing from 10s of miles an hour, as heat.)  This is just 1 car, but believe me when I tell you that ALL of our technology works this way, because Entropy is one of the things that underpins the Physics we base all of our technology on.  Massive amounts of R&D go into cooling, everything from laptops to cars, and the inverse of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics is that Energy can't be Destroyed, either.  That heat doesn't go away, it's invariably dissipated into the atmoshpere as Convection, or Infrared Radiation.  (The band that greenhouse gasses absorb)

You can't make a 100% efficient engine.  When your cell phone turns electricity to light, it produces waste heat.  When your refrigerator cools off those steaks you picked up from the Piggly Wiggly, it produces more heat than it sucks out of the sealed container, and so does your air conditioner, to get rid of the waste heat your refrigerator releases into your home.  This is a relatively minor effect, compared to the sun that hits the surface every day, but it's getting larger.  

More people are being born, and getting things like refrigeration in "Undeveloped Countries."  More people are being developed, and getting access to more technology, every day.  We have rap stars buying up Photovoltaics to take to African villages, and I say this is a Good thing!  Don't get me wrong, I'm not a luddite, and saying that the technology we take for granted is bad on the internet is too much irony for me to find funny.

However, at some point (Again, we're not there yet) it becomes Too Much of a Good Thing.  Like Petroleum, that was good when we were still using Steam Engines, and Whale Oil to read Moby Dick by gaslight.  However, we tend to do things like have a drink, start having a good time, and then keep drinking until we end up in hospital with Alcohol poisoning.  

We don't have to stop, not yet, but we need to slow down, and think about things like Heat Pollution, before they are too much for us to handle.  The first stage is Denial, and I'm not ready to accept the death of the human race.

Not yet.

[IdleBoast]

I'm astonished that anybody, anywhere, is still attempting to deny that climate change is (a) real and (b) humanity's fault.

Or maybe not, since the majority of those I encounter arguing against climate change don't know the difference between weather & climate, have never left their own country / state, think uneducated opinions from social media "influencers" are valid evidence (like the number of followers you have gives you the same informed authority as the people actually measuring the state of the planet?!?), or have a vested financial interest in not fighting climate change.

Anybody over the age of forty and with a half-decent memory has seen the changes with their own eyes, even if they refuse to admit it.

I'm not specifically having a dig at anybody here, I'm just fucking pissed at this whole group of dangerously-self-entitled gits that also campaign against vaccines, think "alternative remedies" are better for you than actual medical treatment, and try to assert authority over women's bodies "because god".

Chewing lumps of uranium tar whilst sipping belladonna is "natural", you morons. Try it, and give the sane members of civilisation some peace while they get on and fix the damage you've done.

[psiberzerker]

I don't know, but I suspect that the deniers seem to fall into two distinct camps:

The Conservative camp thinks that it's God, or conversely if there was something going on, God would fix it, or it's "God's Will."  Basically, having any control over the weather is God's place, and therfore Man can't possibly have that kind of power, or if we did, God would pull the plug, and Rapture the righteous. 

The (Neo) Liberal Camp mostly doesn't seem to want to admit our role, and therefore partial guilt (As a member of the human race) for mass extinctions, whaling, pollution, and Global Warming.  So, this is just straight up first stage Denial (IMNSHO)  It can't be, because that would mean...

All we did in the 60s-to-80s to Save the Whales is kinda moot, if they survive in the cool depths of the oceans, while the polar bears, and giant Pandas die out, because their Habitats don't exist any more.  That's a pretty hard pill to swallow, but the "Bleeding Heart" liberals are sensitive, and i can kinda sympathize with the helpless feeling that all our efforts are basically moot in the face of the Corporations, and Governemnt Agencies (Like Congress) with the power to actually do something about it.

There's also outliers.  I'm not saying every Climate Change denier is one of these two, but those are the 2 most vocal camps, and therefore attract the most followers with their rationale.

The evidence doesn't back them up, though.

[Athos_131]

At least stay til about the 4:30 mark.  You'll thank me.

#Resist

[Lois]

I can't wait until FRIDAY! 


New Report Suggests ‘High Likelihood of Human Civilization Coming to an End’ Starting in 2050
The climate change analysis was written by a former fossil fuel executive and backed by the former chief of Australia's military.

A harrowing scenario analysis of how human civilization might collapse in coming decades due to climate change has been endorsed by a former Australian defense chief and senior royal navy commander.

The analysis, published by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, a think-tank in Melbourne, Australia, describes climate change as “a near- to mid-term existential threat to human civilization” and sets out a plausible scenario of where business-as-usual could lead over the next 30 years.

The paper argues that the potentially “extremely serious outcomes” of climate-related security threats are often far more probable than conventionally assumed, but almost impossible to quantify because they “fall outside the human experience of the last thousand years.”

On our current trajectory, the report warns, “planetary and human systems [are] reaching a ‘point of no return’ by mid-century, in which the prospect of a largely uninhabitable Earth leads to the breakdown of nations and the international order.”

The only way to avoid the risks of this scenario is what the report describes as “akin in scale to the World War II emergency mobilization”—but this time focused on rapidly building out a zero-emissions industrial system to set in train the restoration of a safe climate.

The scenario warns that our current trajectory will likely lock in at least 3 degrees Celsius (C) of global heating, which in turn could trigger further amplifying feedbacks unleashing further warming. This would drive the accelerating collapse of key ecosystems “including coral reef systems, the Amazon rainforest and in the Arctic.”

The results would be devastating. Some one billion people would be forced to attempt to relocate from unlivable conditions, and two billion would face scarcity of water supplies. Agriculture would collapse in the sub-tropics, and food production would suffer dramatically worldwide. The internal cohesion of nation-states like the US and China would unravel.

“Even for 2°C of warming, more than a billion people may need to be relocated and in high-end scenarios, the scale of destruction is beyond our capacity to model with a high likelihood of human civilization coming to an end,” the report notes.

The new policy briefing is written by David Spratt, Breakthrough’s research director and Ian Dunlop, a former senior executive of Royal Dutch Shell who previously chaired the Australian Coal Association.

Read More: Scientists Warn the UN of Capitalism's Imminent Demise

In the briefing’s foreword, retired Admiral Chris Barrie—Chief of the Australian Defence Force from 1998 to 2002 and former Deputy Chief of the Australian Navy—commends the paper for laying “bare the unvarnished truth about the desperate situation humans, and our planet, are in, painting a disturbing picture of the real possibility that human life on Earth may be on the way to extinction, in the most horrible way.”

Barrie now works for the Climate Change Institute at Australian National University, Canberra.

Spratt told Motherboard that a key reason the risks are not understood is that “much knowledge produced for policymakers is too conservative. Because the risks are now existential, a new approach to climate and security risk assessment is required using scenario analysis.”

Last October, Motherboard reported on scientific evidence that the UN’s summary report for government policymakers on climate change—whose findings were widely recognized as “devastating”—were in fact too optimistic.

While the Breakthrough scenario sets out some of the more ‘high end’ risk possibilities, it is often not possible to meaningfully quantify their probabilities. As a result, the authors emphasize that conventional risk approaches tend to downplay worst-case scenarios despite their plausibility.

Spratt and Dunlop’s 2050 scenario illustrates how easy it could be to end up in an accelerating runaway climate scenario which would lead to a largely uninhabitable planet within just a few decades.

“A high-end 2050 scenario finds a world in social breakdown and outright chaos,” said Spratt. “But a short window of opportunity exists for an emergency, global mobilization of resources, in which the logistical and planning experiences of the national security sector could play a valuable role.”

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/597kpd/new-report-suggests-high-likelihood-of-human-civilization-coming-to-an-end-in-2050?fbclid=IwAR1z85ONJRjcTpqJvPaJsGX_CxM8QlKosZf8Xsk3hMMYBnpCgHuImN9sxC0

[_priapism]

Remind me to watch the Day After Tomorrow again.

[Athos_131]

This Striking Climate Change Visualization Is Now Customizable for Any Place on Earth

#Resist