38 ms·

I don't actually think that the all people saying the climate will spiral out of control in 12 years are saying what you are attributing to them. Nuclear is no

I don't actually think that the all people saying the climate will spiral out of control in 12 years are saying what you are attributing to them. Nuclear is not a panacea, but we should build more because this is a global emergency. There is a racist component to the reaction to climate change because of who is being most immediately impacted (equatorial countries and the poor), but intent doesn't matter, because only action matters. The science is bland and harsh, and doesn't care about how people consume it. You can put CO2 in an aquarium, seal it, and easily measure the greenhouse effect from CO2 yourself. You can even work out the basics of the relationship of CO2 concentration to degree of warming. This is happening right now - it's not predictions, it is our reality. It will happen to you regardless of how you feel about the discussion on either side of the issue.

jansan 7y ago
Is there an easy setup for the aquarium experiment that can be done, for example, in school?
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  Yes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwtt51gvaJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwtt51gvaJQ or any other variation.
Udik 7y ago
The co2 warming effect is not in discussion, as you say. But there are cascades of events stemming from the warming itself, and those are integral part of our concern with climate change. How much sea rise will there be? How much will the weather patterns change? How, and how much this will impact catastrophic events? Which negative (or positive) impacts there will be on economies? And of which countries' economies? What will be the ecological impacts? What will be the impacts on health, on infectious diseases? What will be the societal impacts? Etc. Some of these effects are two or three or more steps removed from the warming caused by co2, and there is a "cascade of uncertainty" in predicting them. I agree with the GP that being climate (and atmosphere) omnipresent, it is easy and tempting to draw long causal chains from it to the most disparate effects. And that, given the theme is central to our time, and given the number of scientists of all disciplines working to study these effects, in the most rigorous fields a publication bias on the effects found must exist. In the less rigorous, most probably anything goes.
Iwan-Zotow 7y ago
> who is being most immediately impacted (equatorial countries huh?!? temperature raise is a lot more pronounced at poles, not at equator
- teachrdan 7y ago
  I believe the idea is that equatorial countries are the ones most affected by flooding due to sea levels rising and more powerful storms.
  - godelski 7y ago
    India is a current example of this btw. They've been facing much more devastating floods recently. We can also tract hurricanes in the Atlantic and is is easy to see that the frequency and intensity is increasing. Equatorial regions are also subject to more droughts. There is also a correlation between equatorial countries and many being 2nd or 3rd world countries, which do not have the technological nor economical resources that deal with these events as well as 1st worlds.
- adrianN 7y ago
  There are a lot fewer people living at the poles.
- jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
  In the tropics you'll find a lot of food unsecurity. Hawaii is a good example of this, importing 80% of its food. Now, climate change brings about more than just temperature rise, we're talking about more powerful storms causing more inundation along coastlines. Hawaii is vulnerable in this way because all of the shipping infrastructure which supports 2 million people is at the coastline and could easily be knocked out by a category 5 hurricane. The flooding from such a storm can also salinate farmlands, slosh salt water, chemicals or pathogens into the aquifer. It is clear how shit goes south very quickly from there. Closer to the equator you'll find Kiribati, where salination of farmlands and aquifers has already happened. Luckily the rest of the world is still online and willing to keep their country on life support, but the prospects for kiribati to independently support itself in the long term are non-existent. Carbon dioxide also raises ocean acidity which kills off corals and crashes fisheries, leaving coastal communities without reliable protein sources. I hope you can see how an indifference to climate change on the part of predominately white countries to can be construed as racist. When someone says that, he or she is talking about all the non-white people who are currently suffering due to changes in their climates.
drukenemo 7y ago
But the Earth atmosphere is not the glass of an aquarium, so I’m not sure this example applies.
- bduerst 7y ago
  That's why there are experimental controls with different gas mixtures that measure the greenhouse effect of the CO2 and the effect the glass independently.

jansan 7y ago

Is there an easy setup for the aquarium experiment that can be done, for example, in school?

throwaway5752 7y ago
Yes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwtt51gvaJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwtt51gvaJQ or any other variation.

Udik 7y ago

The co2 warming effect is not in discussion, as you say. But there are cascades of events stemming from the warming itself, and those are integral part of our concern with climate change. How much sea rise will there be? How much will the weather patterns change? How, and how much this will impact catastrophic events? Which negative (or positive) impacts there will be on economies? And of which countries' economies? What will be the ecological impacts? What will be the impacts on health, on infectious diseases? What will be the societal impacts? Etc. Some of these effects are two or three or more steps removed from the warming caused by co2, and there is a "cascade of uncertainty" in predicting them. I agree with the GP that being climate (and atmosphere) omnipresent, it is easy and tempting to draw long causal chains from it to the most disparate effects. And that, given the theme is central to our time, and given the number of scientists of all disciplines working to study these effects, in the most rigorous fields a publication bias on the effects found must exist. In the less rigorous, most probably anything goes.

Iwan-Zotow 7y ago

> who is being most immediately impacted (equatorial countries huh?!? temperature raise is a lot more pronounced at poles, not at equator

teachrdan 7y ago
I believe the idea is that equatorial countries are the ones most affected by flooding due to sea levels rising and more powerful storms.
- godelski 7y ago
  India is a current example of this btw. They've been facing much more devastating floods recently. We can also tract hurricanes in the Atlantic and is is easy to see that the frequency and intensity is increasing. Equatorial regions are also subject to more droughts. There is also a correlation between equatorial countries and many being 2nd or 3rd world countries, which do not have the technological nor economical resources that deal with these events as well as 1st worlds.
adrianN 7y ago
There are a lot fewer people living at the poles.
jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
In the tropics you'll find a lot of food unsecurity. Hawaii is a good example of this, importing 80% of its food. Now, climate change brings about more than just temperature rise, we're talking about more powerful storms causing more inundation along coastlines. Hawaii is vulnerable in this way because all of the shipping infrastructure which supports 2 million people is at the coastline and could easily be knocked out by a category 5 hurricane. The flooding from such a storm can also salinate farmlands, slosh salt water, chemicals or pathogens into the aquifer. It is clear how shit goes south very quickly from there. Closer to the equator you'll find Kiribati, where salination of farmlands and aquifers has already happened. Luckily the rest of the world is still online and willing to keep their country on life support, but the prospects for kiribati to independently support itself in the long term are non-existent. Carbon dioxide also raises ocean acidity which kills off corals and crashes fisheries, leaving coastal communities without reliable protein sources. I hope you can see how an indifference to climate change on the part of predominately white countries to can be construed as racist. When someone says that, he or she is talking about all the non-white people who are currently suffering due to changes in their climates.

drukenemo 7y ago

But the Earth atmosphere is not the glass of an aquarium, so I’m not sure this example applies.

bduerst 7y ago
That's why there are experimental controls with different gas mixtures that measure the greenhouse effect of the CO2 and the effect the glass independently.