5 ms·

> We're at 50% over pre-industrial CO2 with no viable way of getting rid of it, so at best it's going to stay that way for a long, long time. It's much worse t

> We're at 50% over pre-industrial CO2 with no viable way of getting rid of it, so at best it's going to stay that way for a long, long time. It's much worse than this. For a long time the "worst case scenario" was the possibility that we'd unlock positive feedback loops that release methane (80x as "warming" as CO2) that had been long locked in arctic permafrost. Remember the phrase "runaway climate change"? Yeah. It happened. Even if bring human carbon emissions to zero, the world will continue to warm. This is why of the utmost importance to stop fossil fuel emissions NOW... so we can win ourselves some time to maybe, just maybe, figure out clean carbon removal.

revscat 5y ago
Won’t happen under our current socioeconomic regime. If there is profit to be made, fossil fuels will be sold unless there are drastic changes made to the systems which allow it.
- specialist 5y ago
  > Won’t happen under our current socioeconomic regime. I'm not so sure. One thing Trump got absolutely right (intentionally or not) was borrowing money when interest rates are low. There's really no reason not to. If we spend $10T kick starting a carbon capture industry, at near zero interest rates, surely those enterprises will at least break even. Even Big Oil would want some of that sweet, juicy pork.
Sharlin 5y ago
Note though that the warming was always going to continue even after reducing emissions to zero, because it takes time for a complex system to settle into a new stable state. This is only one of the many effects that make highly nonlinear systems difficult to intuitively understand. The math is clear, though (although many of the myriad feedback loops involved are still poorly understood).
- specialist 5y ago
  Sure. Inertia. Understood. u/elbasti is referring to the now active positive feedback loops as separate additional sources GHG and warming. Apologies if that's the distinction you were trying to make.
akomtu 5y ago
Something doesn't add up. The gov officials have fairly complete data on climate change and yet they don't act. When the coronavirus pandemic was an imminent treat, the gov shut down the economy. Now, when the global warming is supposedly going to wipe out the planet in ten years, the gov acts as if it's not a big deal. It's even going to allow the economy to fully reopen by end of year, which means more needless driving and more emissions.
- antasvara 5y ago
  You've described short term thinking incredibly well. The coronavirus pandemic was happening in the present, this making it very easy to address from a political standpoint. It's a lot harder to get people to approve of changed that make their lives hard now in exchange for future benefits.

revscat 5y ago

Won’t happen under our current socioeconomic regime. If there is profit to be made, fossil fuels will be sold unless there are drastic changes made to the systems which allow it.

specialist 5y ago
> Won’t happen under our current socioeconomic regime. I'm not so sure. One thing Trump got absolutely right (intentionally or not) was borrowing money when interest rates are low. There's really no reason not to. If we spend $10T kick starting a carbon capture industry, at near zero interest rates, surely those enterprises will at least break even. Even Big Oil would want some of that sweet, juicy pork.

Sharlin 5y ago

Note though that the warming was always going to continue even after reducing emissions to zero, because it takes time for a complex system to settle into a new stable state. This is only one of the many effects that make highly nonlinear systems difficult to intuitively understand. The math is clear, though (although many of the myriad feedback loops involved are still poorly understood).

specialist 5y ago
Sure. Inertia. Understood. u/elbasti is referring to the now active positive feedback loops as separate additional sources GHG and warming. Apologies if that's the distinction you were trying to make.

akomtu 5y ago

Something doesn't add up. The gov officials have fairly complete data on climate change and yet they don't act. When the coronavirus pandemic was an imminent treat, the gov shut down the economy. Now, when the global warming is supposedly going to wipe out the planet in ten years, the gov acts as if it's not a big deal. It's even going to allow the economy to fully reopen by end of year, which means more needless driving and more emissions.

antasvara 5y ago
You've described short term thinking incredibly well. The coronavirus pandemic was happening in the present, this making it very easy to address from a political standpoint. It's a lot harder to get people to approve of changed that make their lives hard now in exchange for future benefits.