4 ms·

The real question, he said, is whether we overshoot 1.5 C by a little bit and come back down, “Or whether we go blasting through one and a half degrees, go thro

The real question, he said, is whether we overshoot 1.5 C by a little bit and come back down, “Or whether we go blasting through one and a half degrees, go through even two degrees and keep on going.” That's not even a question. Of course we're going to go blasting through 1.5C. And we're going to keep accelerating. We haven't even come close to pretending to try to make a difference. I have absolutely no idea what messaging is most appropriate to convey that. We're still stuck on trying to convince people that anything is happening at all. A minority of people, to be sure, but a minority controlling a significant fraction of the world's wealth (and, not coincidentally, a wildly disproportionate fraction of the world's energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions). To my mind, the fact that we're looking at 4-5C by the end of the century isn't even the worst part. I'll be dead by then. But right now, today, we're having battles over really obvious and simple scientific facts, where the overwhelming evidence is on one side and we still can't make progress. That goes well beyond climate change. It shows up in every aspect of American culture. That's making a lot of lives much worse, today, right now.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hotpotamus 3y ago
All my life I've felt like I'm taking crazy pills talking to these people. The basics of the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect are almost trivial science - first written about (as far as is now known) by an American woman citizen scientist before the Civil War. To say that humans can dump an unlimited amount of that gas into the atmosphere (and it's a terribly awesome accomplishment that the very air we breathe now contains one third more carbon than it did when my parents were children) with zero consequence always struck me as bonkers.
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  To play the devil’s advocate: I have an otherwise intelligent friend who doesn’t believe in global warming because in his mind the cause-and-effect hasn’t been clearly articulated. So I started to explain to him in more rigorous, scientific terms that he’ll understand and accept. I found that it was much, much harder than I had anticipated. I did my own research, and it turns out that the “real story” can’t really be explained without resorting to nonlinear differential equations and high-resolution spectra of exotic chemicals. For example it turns out that it matters a lot that near the poles the upper atmosphere has a higher concentration of various rare isotopes, which shifts the fine structure of absorption spectra just so as to absorb heat from the lower layers. To be perfectly honest, despite a physics degree and a background in chemistry, I didn’t quite follow the full argument and couldn’t relay it to my friend. However when I saw a NASA page about the precision spectra of truly obscure specie such as doubly-ionised isotopically non-standard excited radicals as key inputs into supercomputer climate simulations I was reassured that smart people have sunk an awful lot of effort into the problem.
  - bookaway 3y ago
    A very underrated comment. I think a lot of people, including some people in this thread, willfully avoid this reality. There is a danger in losing one's self in the romanticism of being a "Cassandra", instead of addressing the prerequisite to the required action -- belief. As with any war, correct messaging is vital to retain the public will in the fight. But as with any propaganda, dumbing the truth down might result in a lie. And once such a lie is uncovered and attacked, trust may never again recover (see Covid) and the fight will be forsaken. I think the only way out, the only way to convince the general public without them needing to understand the complexity of "why" is to pour immense resources into improving our prediction of near-term events. Only by demonstrably predicting earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding, detailed weather patterns across the globe 6 months-a year in advance within a day/hour level of accuracy can we hope to convince the public that the models will be as relatively accurate when predicting earth's general characteristics decades into the future. After all, the grudging leeway the public gives doctors and practitioners of mainstream medicine does not seem to be a result of them being swayed by the medical arguments presented to them, but because they have witnessed their powers of healing first hand.
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    Indeed, while the greenhouse gas effect is almost trivially simple science, it is acting on a global climate system that is complex in ways far beyond human understanding (though as you say, collectively we have put some impressive work into comprehending it). Given that our lives and civilizations depend on said complex system, I would consider it wise not to fuck with it.
  - jfengel 3y ago
    You don't need to take it to the molecular level to demonstrate climate change. The fact that ordinary CO2 is opaque to infrared is readily demonstrable by experiment in a classroom. The cause-and-effect from burning hydrocarbons to energy absorption to a warmer environment was explained well over a century ago. The details of the atmosphere's interaction with the land are more complicated, to be sure. But that's not necessary in order to understand that the theory explains the the observations we've been making of a warming atmosphere. That's not sincere argument; that's goalpost shifting.
bazmattaz 3y ago
> we haven’t even come close to pretending to try to make a difference This is what scares me the most. Obviously reach +1.5C is terrifying but what’s worse is the complete inaction of governments (and their citizens) around the world to make a dent in this. Here in the UK our government are just a joke. The prime minister recently pushed back plans to ban sales of ICE vehicles. We are sleeping walking into a catastrophe and it’s depressing. Apart from vote for green parties that never have a chance of getting into power what can I do?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

hotpotamus 3y ago

All my life I've felt like I'm taking crazy pills talking to these people. The basics of the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect are almost trivial science - first written about (as far as is now known) by an American woman citizen scientist before the Civil War. To say that humans can dump an unlimited amount of that gas into the atmosphere (and it's a terribly awesome accomplishment that the very air we breathe now contains one third more carbon than it did when my parents were children) with zero consequence always struck me as bonkers.

jiggawatts 3y ago
To play the devil’s advocate: I have an otherwise intelligent friend who doesn’t believe in global warming because in his mind the cause-and-effect hasn’t been clearly articulated. So I started to explain to him in more rigorous, scientific terms that he’ll understand and accept. I found that it was much, much harder than I had anticipated. I did my own research, and it turns out that the “real story” can’t really be explained without resorting to nonlinear differential equations and high-resolution spectra of exotic chemicals. For example it turns out that it matters a lot that near the poles the upper atmosphere has a higher concentration of various rare isotopes, which shifts the fine structure of absorption spectra just so as to absorb heat from the lower layers. To be perfectly honest, despite a physics degree and a background in chemistry, I didn’t quite follow the full argument and couldn’t relay it to my friend. However when I saw a NASA page about the precision spectra of truly obscure specie such as doubly-ionised isotopically non-standard excited radicals as key inputs into supercomputer climate simulations I was reassured that smart people have sunk an awful lot of effort into the problem.
- bookaway 3y ago
  A very underrated comment. I think a lot of people, including some people in this thread, willfully avoid this reality. There is a danger in losing one's self in the romanticism of being a "Cassandra", instead of addressing the prerequisite to the required action -- belief. As with any war, correct messaging is vital to retain the public will in the fight. But as with any propaganda, dumbing the truth down might result in a lie. And once such a lie is uncovered and attacked, trust may never again recover (see Covid) and the fight will be forsaken. I think the only way out, the only way to convince the general public without them needing to understand the complexity of "why" is to pour immense resources into improving our prediction of near-term events. Only by demonstrably predicting earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding, detailed weather patterns across the globe 6 months-a year in advance within a day/hour level of accuracy can we hope to convince the public that the models will be as relatively accurate when predicting earth's general characteristics decades into the future. After all, the grudging leeway the public gives doctors and practitioners of mainstream medicine does not seem to be a result of them being swayed by the medical arguments presented to them, but because they have witnessed their powers of healing first hand.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  Indeed, while the greenhouse gas effect is almost trivially simple science, it is acting on a global climate system that is complex in ways far beyond human understanding (though as you say, collectively we have put some impressive work into comprehending it). Given that our lives and civilizations depend on said complex system, I would consider it wise not to fuck with it.
- jfengel 3y ago
  You don't need to take it to the molecular level to demonstrate climate change. The fact that ordinary CO2 is opaque to infrared is readily demonstrable by experiment in a classroom. The cause-and-effect from burning hydrocarbons to energy absorption to a warmer environment was explained well over a century ago. The details of the atmosphere's interaction with the land are more complicated, to be sure. But that's not necessary in order to understand that the theory explains the the observations we've been making of a warming atmosphere. That's not sincere argument; that's goalpost shifting.

bazmattaz 3y ago

> we haven’t even come close to pretending to try to make a difference This is what scares me the most. Obviously reach +1.5C is terrifying but what’s worse is the complete inaction of governments (and their citizens) around the world to make a dent in this. Here in the UK our government are just a joke. The prime minister recently pushed back plans to ban sales of ICE vehicles. We are sleeping walking into a catastrophe and it’s depressing. Apart from vote for green parties that never have a chance of getting into power what can I do?