8 ms·

Scientists’ warnings about climate change have intensified

45 points by edgefield0 7y ago

collyw 7y ago
> “Again and again, the same message,” she tweeted recently. “Listen to the scientists, listen to the scientists. Listen to the scientists!” And the mainstream media keeps reporting this while completely ignoring the scientists.
- CalRobert 7y ago
  Well, at least it makes a good epitaph.
- lawlessone 7y ago
  Then the mainstream media platform a climate denialist that believes dinosaurs never existed for "debate" and then says "these opinions are equal"
- macspoofing 7y ago
  (Climate) Scientists aren't actually that helpful in proposing solutions, just predicting how screwed we are if we do nothing. Moving from fossil fuels is actually quite hard. There is nothing to replace oil as fuel for global trade (i.e. fuel for airliners, cargo ships, long-haul trucking). There are tens of thousands of petroleum-based products without an obvious replacement. The environmental movement is still spreading FUD on nuclear (the only non-carbon emitting power source along with hydro and geothermal), preferring to push solar and wind even though those need natural gas backup to be viable. At this point it's probably more practical to start planning for mitigations to climate change effects.
  - nxpnsv 7y ago
    They are doing exactly what is expected of climate scientists. They are not policy makers, they gather and process data to build predictive models. Now they are scared of what they predict. Why require that they also come up with solutions, before sounding alarms?
    - macspoofing 7y ago
      But that was my point. Right now I think we have a good handle on the severity of the problem. The policy is much harder and 'listening to the scientists' doesn't help.
      - nxpnsv 7y ago
        I have the feeling that some policy maker are not aware of the severity. But let's say they are. Now they make a new policy. How do we gauge what the impact of this policy? This falls within the realm of said scientist. How to suggest new policies etc, that requires another skill set. We also should listen to those guys.
  - Certhas 7y ago
    This is utter nonsense. There are things that are hard to replace, but all of what you talk about is being studied by scientists extensively. Obviously not climate scientists, becasue, duh, they are experts on cimate, not on long haul shipping. But renewables are scientifically a solved problem (all the predictions on the long term technological development of renewables also turned out to be far far to conservative). For the last 10% or so you need synthetic gas for long term storage of energy, but actually with the electrification of the heating sector, it turns out that nuclear would need synthetic gas for long term storage, too, for economic reasons. Further, it is is clear that a lot of R&D is still required, but again, environmental economists have discussed in detail that the best way to incentivize the R&D spending required would have been a solid carbon tax. The problem is not the lack of solutions, the problem is the lack of political will to implement them. It's disruptive, powerful lobbies have been funding climate denialism for decades, and people are unwilling to suffer even a minimal drop in living standards in order to stop climate change. The technical hurdles are all doable, but whether we as a species can collectively act on the knowledge that we collectively have is an open question. It's the hardest question, and it's infused with ideological battles on all sides. The US can't even operate an efficient public health system. It accepts enormous inefficiencies and human suffering for ideological reasons. And that's for its own citizens. Climate change will affect the poorest countries most.
    - macspoofing 7y ago
      >But renewables are scientifically a solved problem I don't think so. Whenever there is huge investment in solar and wind, you see a comparable investment in natural gas to bridge the intermittency issues (e.g. Germany). That isn't a solved problem. That solar and wind require huge amounts of rare earth minerals, have huge land-use requirements, and are largely unrecyclable, is not a solved problem. >For the last 10% You sure that shouldn't be the 'last 50%'? >so you need synthetic gas for long term storage of ener These discussions always seem to go this way. When presented with major challenges to large scale deployments of solar and wind, an unproven, unavailable or unworkable workaround is propsed. No, synthetic gas is not a solution, just like pumped/gravity or Li-ion storage isn't either. >The technical hurdles are all doable To be clear, this is an expression of hope for the future (after more R&D), and not reality today, correct? Today, we don't have a way to fully move off of fossil fuels. >It's disruptive, powerful lobbies have been funding climate denialism There are powerful lobbies all over the place. For example, did you know that natural gas companies are one of the biggest lobby groups for solar and wind deployments? Why is that?
  - pfisch 7y ago
    I don't know why we aren't going full bore on developing a sun shade that we have some control over so regardless of the cause we can just regulate the temperature of the planet. You can say it is risky to engage in terraforming projects like that but we have already been engaging in terraforming for hundreds of years now with no plan at all. Also humans are pretty good at uniting around one singular huge project, but pretty bad at the millions of small projects that are required to fix this problem the correct way.
    - keanzu 7y ago
      Even at projected SpaceX lift prices of $1000/lb access to space is still prohibitively expensive. The Earth is big and a big mirror would be needed: millions of tonnes size range. Not only that but it would have to be delivered to the L1 Lagrange point, SpaceX prices are for lift to LEO only. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade Conceptually it would work fine, economics are a problem.
  - tremon 7y ago
    We did global trade before we had combustion engines, you know. So that is not impossible, just takes longer. And I remember reading about using cellulose-based packaging (corn husks I believe) to replace plastic some fifteen years ago. Agreed on nuclear though, I think it's essential to have. And yes, I agree that we're well past the "avert" scenario, we need to start planning mitigations.
    - macspoofing 7y ago
      >We did global trade before we had combustion engines, you know Indeed. Going back to pre-industrial way of doing global trade is certainly a kind of a solution. Not sure how reasonable that is.
peze 7y ago
Propaganda of global proportions
- Certhas 7y ago
  Yeah, because the damn environmentalists have all the power to impose their views on the unsuspecting, well meaning, oil giants and global corporations. If only those oil giants and their allies had pushed back early enough, maybe the truth could have won out! Well, reality check, in the 90s the GOP and even the oil giants accepted the reality of and scientific consensus on global warming, but with sufficient funding from interested parties, they were able to stave of decisive action for decades, netting them many many billions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTmS0exb7r8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTmS0exb7r8 https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/kochland-examines-how-the-koch-brothers-made-their-fortune-and-the-influence-it-bought https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/kochland-examin...
vfc1 7y ago
With the human population growing exponentially, its a certainty that we will breeze by the 1.5 degrees limit very soon. People don't want to give up their cheeseburgers, all excuses are good, and the level of misinformation that goes around the topic of climate change is through the roof. I'm glad Greta is contributing to informing the general public of the consequences of their choices but people don't want to hear it will take a lifetime to change the behavior of even a small amount of people.
- drmpeg 7y ago
  Only when Miami is completely underwater and uninhabitable will there be a change of behavior.
  - tremon 7y ago
    When Miami is completely underwater and uninhabitable there will still only be a change of behavior of Miamians, I fear.
  - madaxe_again 7y ago
    Sooner - when insurers start either putting premiums up to completely unaffordable levels, or outright refuse insurance. When cities can no longer afford the infrastructure burden, and are forced to put taxes through the roof. That won’t take Miami being completely underwater, just a few more severe storm surges. When millions of people start losing their retirement homes, tunes will change.
  - vfc1 7y ago
    I bet that still then you will only hear: "it's just a couple of miles near the coast, it's not the end of the world. It's not that bad."
    - thundergolfer 7y ago
      I get your point about people being stubbornly ignorant, but I learned this today so I thought I’d throw it out there. If ocean rising has gotten so bad that Miami is underwater the accompanying acidification of those oceans will have reaped havoc on marine fishing putting 500 million people’s food security at risk. Half a billion people in underdeveloped countries without to a vital part of their diet. Half a billion, and that’s just people that rely on fish. Inland people add to the numbers if their farming suffers.
itronitron 7y ago
Are there any compelling papers or presentations on the impact and science of climate change? Virtually all reporting presents/qualifies it as 'what scientists say'. Since the convention in journalism is to create doubt for the reader by phrasing something as 'person says' I find these articles easy to ignore.
- myspy 7y ago
  Google Scholar offers a wide range of papers about papers around that topic. Maybe there are a couple must read papers or meta studies.
- ptah 7y ago
  this is a pretty compelling survey: http://lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf http://lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf
  - hannob 7y ago
    Unfortunately this is not based on real science. The main argument relies on a source called "arctic news", which is a crank blog. These doomsday messages aren't helpful. The situation is bad. The real science is grueling. Telling people that there's nothing to be done any more isn't helpful.
    - ptah 7y ago
      it is generally agreed that doing everything we can now will only give us a 50/50 chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. seeing as we will not do everything we can, it is reasonable to think that it is too late https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/carbon-cuts-only-give-5050-chance-of-saving-planet-1640154.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/car...
      - hannob 7y ago
        "Catastrophic climate change" is not a binary thing where you either have it or you don't. We'll almost certainly have catastrophic climate change. It will still make a huge difference if we try to limit it as much as possible or if we just go on without caring.
lsd5you 7y ago
We will have overpopulation and environmental crises in the future and they will get explained away mindlessly as being completely caused by climate change, when that may be only a partial or even not significant factor in the events. Not enough fresh water - climate change! Not the fact that the population increased by a factor of 4, and the local acquifers have been drained.
- Certhas 7y ago
  Hu? Climate change causes changes in rainfall patterns. These are hard to predict, but it's where a lot of research is focusing right now. The IPCC also says so. In some regions it might be helpful, in others it will hurt. So climate change interacts with everything, but I think it's obvious to everyone invlved that it isn't the main driver of everything?
  - lsd5you 7y ago
    There have always been droughts though, and things have varied from location to location. This effect you are invoking needs actually quantifying, and then comparing to the change in population. Would these regions coped if their populations hadn't drastically increased? Has water supply actually even decreased? e.g. Yemen, population has gone up x4 in 40 years (or something like this). They have wars, and water shortages. What is the relative contribution of climate change? So, see this article. https://climateandsecurity.org/2016/08/03/a-storm-without-rain-yemen-water-climate-change-and-conflict/ https://climateandsecurity.org/2016/08/03/a-storm-without-ra... It is fairly balanced and fact filled, but when it comes to reduced rainfall and climate change, they are invoked, but left completely unquantified. No source, no estimate, no numbers (let alone a nice impartial unmanipulated graph). Did it decrease 10%, 1%. So if they have absolutely no handle on the quantification how can they make the claim at all? If there is a large uncertainty then that should be expressed. This is what I mean, we are being primed to accept climate change as an explanation. When we have other massive, dominating factors - massive population growth and running out of acquifer runway (i.e. they have been in deficit for a long time).
    - 7y ago
sysbin 7y ago
Something worth noting that likely gets ignored regarding the topic of climate change. Some of the population really doesn’t care if the world becomes inhabitable for humans after they die. As an optimist I’ve observed this outlook and I think it’s because quality of life has actually diminished from the visibility of social media and rising cost of homes. I could be wrong on the cause but the original problem exists and I wonder if society needs to improve for the mid to lower classes before people have the desire to help in the protests.
RickJWagner 7y ago
Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I think a lot of these things go in 4 year cycles, with the American elections. Not to dismiss climate change-- it's a real issue-- but the publicity around it is certainly tied to politics.
- beatgammit 7y ago
  Unfortunately, it seems to last 1-2 years, so I really only trust the news about 50-75% of the time, less if there's ongoing political drama. The less I hear from politicians in the news, the more I trust the news, which is sad...
methodiosmel 7y ago
Yawn!

45 points by edgefield0 7y ago

> “Again and again, the same message,” she tweeted recently. “Listen to the scientists, listen to the scientists. Listen to the scientists!” And the mainstream media keeps reporting this while completely ignoring the scientists.

CalRobert 7y ago
Well, at least it makes a good epitaph.
lawlessone 7y ago
Then the mainstream media platform a climate denialist that believes dinosaurs never existed for "debate" and then says "these opinions are equal"
macspoofing 7y ago
(Climate) Scientists aren't actually that helpful in proposing solutions, just predicting how screwed we are if we do nothing. Moving from fossil fuels is actually quite hard. There is nothing to replace oil as fuel for global trade (i.e. fuel for airliners, cargo ships, long-haul trucking). There are tens of thousands of petroleum-based products without an obvious replacement. The environmental movement is still spreading FUD on nuclear (the only non-carbon emitting power source along with hydro and geothermal), preferring to push solar and wind even though those need natural gas backup to be viable. At this point it's probably more practical to start planning for mitigations to climate change effects.
- nxpnsv 7y ago
  They are doing exactly what is expected of climate scientists. They are not policy makers, they gather and process data to build predictive models. Now they are scared of what they predict. Why require that they also come up with solutions, before sounding alarms?
  - macspoofing 7y ago
    But that was my point. Right now I think we have a good handle on the severity of the problem. The policy is much harder and 'listening to the scientists' doesn't help.
    - nxpnsv 7y ago
      I have the feeling that some policy maker are not aware of the severity. But let's say they are. Now they make a new policy. How do we gauge what the impact of this policy? This falls within the realm of said scientist. How to suggest new policies etc, that requires another skill set. We also should listen to those guys.
- Certhas 7y ago
  This is utter nonsense. There are things that are hard to replace, but all of what you talk about is being studied by scientists extensively. Obviously not climate scientists, becasue, duh, they are experts on cimate, not on long haul shipping. But renewables are scientifically a solved problem (all the predictions on the long term technological development of renewables also turned out to be far far to conservative). For the last 10% or so you need synthetic gas for long term storage of energy, but actually with the electrification of the heating sector, it turns out that nuclear would need synthetic gas for long term storage, too, for economic reasons. Further, it is is clear that a lot of R&D is still required, but again, environmental economists have discussed in detail that the best way to incentivize the R&D spending required would have been a solid carbon tax. The problem is not the lack of solutions, the problem is the lack of political will to implement them. It's disruptive, powerful lobbies have been funding climate denialism for decades, and people are unwilling to suffer even a minimal drop in living standards in order to stop climate change. The technical hurdles are all doable, but whether we as a species can collectively act on the knowledge that we collectively have is an open question. It's the hardest question, and it's infused with ideological battles on all sides. The US can't even operate an efficient public health system. It accepts enormous inefficiencies and human suffering for ideological reasons. And that's for its own citizens. Climate change will affect the poorest countries most.
  - macspoofing 7y ago
    >But renewables are scientifically a solved problem I don't think so. Whenever there is huge investment in solar and wind, you see a comparable investment in natural gas to bridge the intermittency issues (e.g. Germany). That isn't a solved problem. That solar and wind require huge amounts of rare earth minerals, have huge land-use requirements, and are largely unrecyclable, is not a solved problem. >For the last 10% You sure that shouldn't be the 'last 50%'? >so you need synthetic gas for long term storage of ener These discussions always seem to go this way. When presented with major challenges to large scale deployments of solar and wind, an unproven, unavailable or unworkable workaround is propsed. No, synthetic gas is not a solution, just like pumped/gravity or Li-ion storage isn't either. >The technical hurdles are all doable To be clear, this is an expression of hope for the future (after more R&D), and not reality today, correct? Today, we don't have a way to fully move off of fossil fuels. >It's disruptive, powerful lobbies have been funding climate denialism There are powerful lobbies all over the place. For example, did you know that natural gas companies are one of the biggest lobby groups for solar and wind deployments? Why is that?
- pfisch 7y ago
  I don't know why we aren't going full bore on developing a sun shade that we have some control over so regardless of the cause we can just regulate the temperature of the planet. You can say it is risky to engage in terraforming projects like that but we have already been engaging in terraforming for hundreds of years now with no plan at all. Also humans are pretty good at uniting around one singular huge project, but pretty bad at the millions of small projects that are required to fix this problem the correct way.
  - keanzu 7y ago
    Even at projected SpaceX lift prices of $1000/lb access to space is still prohibitively expensive. The Earth is big and a big mirror would be needed: millions of tonnes size range. Not only that but it would have to be delivered to the L1 Lagrange point, SpaceX prices are for lift to LEO only. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade Conceptually it would work fine, economics are a problem.
- tremon 7y ago
  We did global trade before we had combustion engines, you know. So that is not impossible, just takes longer. And I remember reading about using cellulose-based packaging (corn husks I believe) to replace plastic some fifteen years ago. Agreed on nuclear though, I think it's essential to have. And yes, I agree that we're well past the "avert" scenario, we need to start planning mitigations.
  - macspoofing 7y ago
    >We did global trade before we had combustion engines, you know Indeed. Going back to pre-industrial way of doing global trade is certainly a kind of a solution. Not sure how reasonable that is.

peze 7y ago

Propaganda of global proportions

Certhas 7y ago
Yeah, because the damn environmentalists have all the power to impose their views on the unsuspecting, well meaning, oil giants and global corporations. If only those oil giants and their allies had pushed back early enough, maybe the truth could have won out! Well, reality check, in the 90s the GOP and even the oil giants accepted the reality of and scientific consensus on global warming, but with sufficient funding from interested parties, they were able to stave of decisive action for decades, netting them many many billions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTmS0exb7r8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTmS0exb7r8 https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/kochland-examines-how-the-koch-brothers-made-their-fortune-and-the-influence-it-bought https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/kochland-examin...

vfc1 7y ago

With the human population growing exponentially, its a certainty that we will breeze by the 1.5 degrees limit very soon. People don't want to give up their cheeseburgers, all excuses are good, and the level of misinformation that goes around the topic of climate change is through the roof. I'm glad Greta is contributing to informing the general public of the consequences of their choices but people don't want to hear it will take a lifetime to change the behavior of even a small amount of people.

drmpeg 7y ago
Only when Miami is completely underwater and uninhabitable will there be a change of behavior.
- tremon 7y ago
  When Miami is completely underwater and uninhabitable there will still only be a change of behavior of Miamians, I fear.
- madaxe_again 7y ago
  Sooner - when insurers start either putting premiums up to completely unaffordable levels, or outright refuse insurance. When cities can no longer afford the infrastructure burden, and are forced to put taxes through the roof. That won’t take Miami being completely underwater, just a few more severe storm surges. When millions of people start losing their retirement homes, tunes will change.
- vfc1 7y ago
  I bet that still then you will only hear: "it's just a couple of miles near the coast, it's not the end of the world. It's not that bad."
  - thundergolfer 7y ago
    I get your point about people being stubbornly ignorant, but I learned this today so I thought I’d throw it out there. If ocean rising has gotten so bad that Miami is underwater the accompanying acidification of those oceans will have reaped havoc on marine fishing putting 500 million people’s food security at risk. Half a billion people in underdeveloped countries without to a vital part of their diet. Half a billion, and that’s just people that rely on fish. Inland people add to the numbers if their farming suffers.

itronitron 7y ago

Are there any compelling papers or presentations on the impact and science of climate change? Virtually all reporting presents/qualifies it as 'what scientists say'. Since the convention in journalism is to create doubt for the reader by phrasing something as 'person says' I find these articles easy to ignore.

myspy 7y ago
Google Scholar offers a wide range of papers about papers around that topic. Maybe there are a couple must read papers or meta studies.
ptah 7y ago
this is a pretty compelling survey: http://lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf http://lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf
- hannob 7y ago
  Unfortunately this is not based on real science. The main argument relies on a source called "arctic news", which is a crank blog. These doomsday messages aren't helpful. The situation is bad. The real science is grueling. Telling people that there's nothing to be done any more isn't helpful.
  - ptah 7y ago
    it is generally agreed that doing everything we can now will only give us a 50/50 chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. seeing as we will not do everything we can, it is reasonable to think that it is too late https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/carbon-cuts-only-give-5050-chance-of-saving-planet-1640154.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/car...
    - hannob 7y ago
      "Catastrophic climate change" is not a binary thing where you either have it or you don't. We'll almost certainly have catastrophic climate change. It will still make a huge difference if we try to limit it as much as possible or if we just go on without caring.

lsd5you 7y ago

We will have overpopulation and environmental crises in the future and they will get explained away mindlessly as being completely caused by climate change, when that may be only a partial or even not significant factor in the events. Not enough fresh water - climate change! Not the fact that the population increased by a factor of 4, and the local acquifers have been drained.

Certhas 7y ago
Hu? Climate change causes changes in rainfall patterns. These are hard to predict, but it's where a lot of research is focusing right now. The IPCC also says so. In some regions it might be helpful, in others it will hurt. So climate change interacts with everything, but I think it's obvious to everyone invlved that it isn't the main driver of everything?
- lsd5you 7y ago
  There have always been droughts though, and things have varied from location to location. This effect you are invoking needs actually quantifying, and then comparing to the change in population. Would these regions coped if their populations hadn't drastically increased? Has water supply actually even decreased? e.g. Yemen, population has gone up x4 in 40 years (or something like this). They have wars, and water shortages. What is the relative contribution of climate change? So, see this article. https://climateandsecurity.org/2016/08/03/a-storm-without-rain-yemen-water-climate-change-and-conflict/ https://climateandsecurity.org/2016/08/03/a-storm-without-ra... It is fairly balanced and fact filled, but when it comes to reduced rainfall and climate change, they are invoked, but left completely unquantified. No source, no estimate, no numbers (let alone a nice impartial unmanipulated graph). Did it decrease 10%, 1%. So if they have absolutely no handle on the quantification how can they make the claim at all? If there is a large uncertainty then that should be expressed. This is what I mean, we are being primed to accept climate change as an explanation. When we have other massive, dominating factors - massive population growth and running out of acquifer runway (i.e. they have been in deficit for a long time).
  - 7y ago

sysbin 7y ago

Something worth noting that likely gets ignored regarding the topic of climate change. Some of the population really doesn’t care if the world becomes inhabitable for humans after they die. As an optimist I’ve observed this outlook and I think it’s because quality of life has actually diminished from the visibility of social media and rising cost of homes. I could be wrong on the cause but the original problem exists and I wonder if society needs to improve for the mid to lower classes before people have the desire to help in the protests.

RickJWagner 7y ago

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I think a lot of these things go in 4 year cycles, with the American elections. Not to dismiss climate change-- it's a real issue-- but the publicity around it is certainly tied to politics.

beatgammit 7y ago
Unfortunately, it seems to last 1-2 years, so I really only trust the news about 50-75% of the time, less if there's ongoing political drama. The less I hear from politicians in the news, the more I trust the news, which is sad...

methodiosmel 7y ago

Yawn!