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These la nina/el nino cycles seem to be long period climate patterns which already existed, because they’re measured in decades and we don’t have records for al
by colechristensen 4y ago
These la nina/el nino cycles seem to be long period climate patterns which already existed, because they’re measured in decades and we don’t have records for all that long n is very small and quite hard to determine if there are anthropogenic effects to them.
Things people forget with climate is that there are indeed long cyclical patterns not all of which are well understood which have significant weather effects. You can’t just yell global warming every time there is an apparent change or bad weather.
If you are interested in truth and not just a political narrative you have to be curious, open, and ready to acknowledge not everything is going to fit the popular doom stories.
- jliptzin 4y agoI agree with you but in a situation like this it’s a lot better to overreact than to underreact. If we do more than we need to, we get cheap solar panels, long lasting batteries, and maybe a lot of time and money wasted on ideas that didn’t work out. If we do less than we have to, we get a possibly irreversible feedback loop of global warming that leads to the collapse of most habitats (including ours) on this planet.
- colechristensen 4y agoIt’s not though. There are a large volume of people who question the validity of climate change at all, exaggerating only causes more doubt and recruits for the opposition. The doom scenario of “irreversible collapse” is also quite unlikely but some people really like scary stories. And to be blunt any practical imaginable progress is not going to be a very big change, if it’s going to happen the damage is already likely done.
- jliptzin 4y agoYou said yourself it’s not well understood, don’t you think it’s wise to err on the side of caution? What’s the downside of getting off fossil fuels anyway, besides some people needing to switch careers from coal mining to solar panel installation, for example?
- pclmulqdq 4y agoThe downside is not having heat in the winter in Sweden. There is a pretty significant downside there.
- sph 4y agoElectric heating is a thing, and so is nuclear power.
- zosima 4y agoNuclear power is great. Unfortunately the environmental groups that lobbied for renewable energy, also lobbied against nuclear power. So much less available nuclear power for Sweden in the winter, than there should have been.
- kergonath 4y agoThe false dichotomy is very damaging. It’s not nuclear or renewables. We need both, and as much of either as we possibly can. Neither nuclear or renewables would be enough to get rid of enough fossil fuels on their own.
- danhor 4y agoBut it doesn't make much sense to combine them. Wind and Solar, as well as nuclear have similar cost characteristics. The cost of an additional unit of energy produced is very low, almost all of the cost is in building them & keeping them running. It almost never makes (financial) sense to throttle them. Thus nuclear being a so-called baseload. It doesn't make much sense to use it in any other way (for example, like a peaker-plant). Both are best served with a complement that has low(er) capital cost but higher cost per unit of energy produced like storage or gas plants (maybe with P2G) for periods of high demand or when generation falls flat (mostly for renewables, but as we're seeing in france some nuclear reactors are having trouble as well in high-temp environments).
- pstuart 4y agoThere are a large volume of people who believe that demons and ghosts are real: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/10/28/do-ghosts-exist-41-percent-americans-say-yes/8580577002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/10/28/do-gho... I say that just to point out that popularity doesn't provide legitimacy. But with that case I'd assume that there just might be a significant overlap between that example and climate deniers. The doom scenarios have enough possibility and probability to warrant being taken seriously. Wishing it away on future generations is psychopathic.
- fraudsyndrome 4y agoHasn't there been multiple variations/iterations of "validity of climate change"? As in, some form of "climate change isn't real" to "climate change is real but it's normal and not man made" to "climate change is real and man made but it's not that bad" so on so forth. I wonder if the opposite exists. People in climate change denier groups that exaggerate just how normal it is which as you said only causes more doubts and recruits for the opposition. I admit I haven't delved into the "opposition" - in this case assuming that "deniers" are a loud minority and the main agreed viewpoint is some form of climate is going to be bad for everyone regardless of the source. But given the rigorous process in science and how much evidence is available (whether deniers are skeptical of ALL of the evidence or not) - is there any research with a similar process against it? Regarding what you said about how the "irreversible collapse is also quite unlikely"?
- montalbano 4y agoHaldane's theory on stages of acceptance: 1. This is worthless nonsense. 2. This is an interesting, but perverse, point of view. 3. This is true, but quite unimportant. 4. I always said so.
- thrown_22 4y agoIf we over react we get an unstable grid which is incredibly fragile and doesn't work in the winter. Just look at Germany today. The only country to voluntarily de-electrify itself.
- galangalalgol 4y agoMy understanding is that they have actually added brown-coal capacity to their grid. The problem wasn't a fear of climate change, but of another Fukushima type event. They have been ramping up wind, and they have fairly reliable wind, but wind patterns can shift too.
- deltree7 4y agoOverreact is practically "Boy who cried wolf" There is such a thing a social capital that you have to spend wisely on real important things. Else, you'll lose trust and you can't play that card again
- Loic 4y agoThe wolf is already at work. Just go hiking in the Alps and look at the extend of the glaciers, take a look at the raining/snowing patterns over the past 50 years, everwhere you look you can see the effects. You can call it what you want, but anyway if we want to live long term on this planet we need to reach an equilibrium with our environment. We definitely can't achieve this by pumping oil and gas out and burning it.
- zosima 4y agoGlaciers have been melting in the north since the last ice age though. It may go faster now than it did 100 years ago, but with or without more CO2, glaciers were going to disappear many places.
- kergonath 4y agoIn the very long term, and even then it was uncertain as the planet would be on a cooling trend right now. Even then, we’re talking about “glaciers might disappear in 10 000 years” versus “80% of alpine glaciers will be gone in a century”.
- zosima 4y agoIt's speculative so who knows. But northern Europe was covered fully by ice 12000 years ago. There has definitely been more melting since then, than what is left.
- chowells 4y agoDid you pay attention to the boy who cried wolf? There was a wolf. It ate the boy. The villagers didn't do a thing to stop it. You'd better hope this isn't a "Boy who cried wolf" situation.
- bongobingo1 4y agohttps://www.gocomics.com/joelpett/2009/12/13 https://www.gocomics.com/joelpett/2009/12/13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_if_it%27s_a_big_hoax_and_we_create_a_better_world_for_nothing%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_if_it%27s_a_big_hoax_and_...
- zosima 4y agoBut what if it's a smaller deal than some suggests and people in Europe now are going to freeze and potentially even starve because the transition to environmentally-friendly energy was completely botched?
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- vkou 4y agoExactly which pre-existing climate pattern is responsible for the hockey-stick graph, and when is it going to let go of the accelerator?