8 ms·

How to Fathom Climate Change's Unfathomable Numbers

22 points by coloneltcb 3y ago

andreyk 3y ago
TLDR: "For the first time, I do start to see it. Five billion people is almost 600 New Yorks. Almost 600 future New York Cities will need more water. Everyone I pass on my bicycle (including the climate refugees soon to be sequestered next to the old airstrip) will be thirsty. Everyone on the subway, everyone visiting the Empire State Building, everyone in a Broadway audience — thirsty, if they live in the wrong New York City. And repeat that 600 times. Oddly then, I can see the shape of that number. And 5 billion, along with the parts per million and degrees of warming, starts to make sense. To learn this stuff requires new intuitions. The old ones don’t scale. ... We use the world “unimaginable” a lot, and rarely with optimism. But the world is far, far more imaginable if you see everything as a multiple of home." Pretty common sense stuff. Personally, I think we need to have a lot more "climate change art". Nothing has driven the reality of how catastrophic climate change will be for me quite like the opening chapter of The Ministry of the Future - https://www.orbitbooks.net/orbit-excerpts/the-ministry-for-the-future/ https://www.orbitbooks.net/orbit-excerpts/the-ministry-for-t...
- it_citizen 3y ago
  I read that chapter just before a heat dome settled over the pacific north west. Climate change had never felt so real to me.
- hh3k0 3y ago
  Allow me to recommend you an outstanding novel: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60806778 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60806778
  - 1-more 3y ago
    Ooooh if we're doing climate change novels allow me to add 1) almost anything by Paolo Bacigalupi and 2) two of Kim Stanley Robinson's latest three novels 1. PG short story The Tamarisk Hunter audio and text. What if federalism broke down and California paid a water bounty to keep the Colorado river flowing to CA. https://escapepod.org/2013/02/21/ep384-the-tamarisk-hunter/ https://escapepod.org/2013/02/21/ep384-the-tamarisk-hunter/ canonical author's link: https://windupstories.com/books/pump-six-and-other-stories/the-tamarisk-hunter/ https://windupstories.com/books/pump-six-and-other-stories/t... 2. PG novel The Water Knife expanding on The Tamarisk Hunter https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23209924-the-water-knife?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=mIXhLuwA9f&rank=1 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23209924-the-water-knife... 3. KSR novel New York 2140. What if sea rise into the cities led to a financial market on real estate involving day trading on those values? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29570143-new-york-2140?ref=nav_sb_noss_l_13 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29570143-new-york-2140?r... 4. KSR novel Ministry for the Future. What if the UN had to put together a team to keep the earth habitable as heatwaves started causing mass casualty events particularly in the subcontinent? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50998056-the-ministry-for-the-future?ref=nav_sb_noss_l_22 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50998056-the-ministry-fo...
- whatshisface 3y ago
  "Be thirsty" is not a remotely likely outcome for cutting back on the vast majority of water use patterns... you shower with more water than you drink and our agricultural system is based on aquifer-supplied irrigation.
  - monknomo 3y ago
    the aquifers are discharging faster than they are recharging in an awful lot of cases
    - whatshisface 3y ago
      Yes, and almost all of that water is going to non-potable water applications.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
akira2501 3y ago
It attempts to manage obfuscation with more obfuscation. People are results and cost oriented, and I'm sorry to tell the climatologists that psychology is not going to change just because they think they have a good scary story to tell. It does not matter how you twist the story up, what relations you use, or what scale of numbers you decide to use. Until people see a material change, they're not going to make massive changes themselves.
- hh3k0 3y ago
  > Until people see a material change, they're not going to make massive changes themselves. The beauty of climate change is that it’ll be too late by then. A perfect civilisation killer, designing a better one would be a tall order.
  - lisper 3y ago
    I'm not sure "beauty" is the word I would have chosen. But it's really important to emphasize this: by the time things get bad enough to really notice, it will be far too late to stop them from getting much, much worse. Once the permafrost starts to melt and release it's methane, it's game over (and that process has already begun).
    - peteradio 3y ago
      > Once the permafrost starts to melt and release it's methane, it's game over (and that process has already begun). Sources?
      - lisper 3y ago
        https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/permafrost https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/permafrost https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2785/unexpected-future-boost-of-methane-possible-from-arctic-permafrost/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2785/unexpected-future-boost-o... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/driven-by-climate-change-thawing-permafrost-is-radically-changing-the-arctic-landscape https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/driven-by-climate-chang... "Under the surface, something else is active – and it is amplifying global warming. When the ground thaws, microbes begin feasting on organic matter in soils that have been frozen for millennia. These microbes release carbon dioxide and methane, potent greenhouse gases. As those gases escape into the atmosphere, they further warm the climate, creating a feedback loop: Warmer temperatures thaw more soil, releasing more organic material for microbes to feast on and produce more greenhouse gases."
aeternum 3y ago
>Many New Yorks — those with the bad luck to be in South America or parts of India — will be simply unlivable. What about all the potential New Yorks that are currently too cold to live in but could be thriving cities if they were just warmer? More humans die every year of cold than of heat. Just due to the asymmetry of the numbers, there's a good chance that global temp increases will actually save lives, a fact that is rarely mentioned by articles like this.
- it_citizen 3y ago
  Global temperature increase doesn't mean it gets warmer everywhere and anytime. Weather will just become more extreme and there is a good chance that more people will die from harsher winters too.
  - api 3y ago
    "Increased cumulative atmospheric energy" is better but less catchy than global warming. It can manifest as either temperature or kinetic energy.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      "Climate Chaos" should be the term.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > Global temperature increase doesn't mean it gets warmer everywhere and anytime. It does mean that the poles warm more than the tropics--in other words, extreme cold decreases by more than extreme heat increases. > Weather will just become more extreme There is no data showing that extreme weather events are becoming more common with climate change. The cost of such events is going up, but that's because there is a lot more valuable property in areas where the events happen. > there is a good chance that more people will die from harsher winters too. No, there isn't. There is no data showing this and no models predict it.
    - 3y ago
_oskh 3y ago
[flagged]
- hh3k0 3y ago
  You will live to see the worst of it. Denial will not save you.
  - _oskh 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - hh3k0 3y ago
      There is no bet for you to take, but I hope you’ll find the time to think back to your foolishness once when we have resource wars and widespread famines due to simultaneous global breadbasket failure.
      - _oskh 3y ago
        [flagged]
        worik 3y ago
        They are observations
        User23 3y ago
        They are observations plus modelled corrections. Here's a simple thought experiment. How would you accurately measure the average temperature in a kitchen? Residential? How about commercial? How many sensors would you need? Where would you locate them? How about in a gymnasium when it's empty? Or during a basketball game with packed stands? How about the State of California? The USA? The world? Climate scientists have to think about all of these things, and sadly there isn't one right answer. So they end up making assumptions that are based on their models. That's right, the model drives the measurement! Supposedly those techniques are robust, but naively it feels like there's definitely room for some pretty significant mistakes to be made.
ioblomov 3y ago
https://archive.ph/MxHTT https://archive.ph/MxHTT

22 points by coloneltcb 3y ago

TLDR: "For the first time, I do start to see it. Five billion people is almost 600 New Yorks. Almost 600 future New York Cities will need more water. Everyone I pass on my bicycle (including the climate refugees soon to be sequestered next to the old airstrip) will be thirsty. Everyone on the subway, everyone visiting the Empire State Building, everyone in a Broadway audience — thirsty, if they live in the wrong New York City. And repeat that 600 times. Oddly then, I can see the shape of that number. And 5 billion, along with the parts per million and degrees of warming, starts to make sense. To learn this stuff requires new intuitions. The old ones don’t scale. ... We use the world “unimaginable” a lot, and rarely with optimism. But the world is far, far more imaginable if you see everything as a multiple of home." Pretty common sense stuff. Personally, I think we need to have a lot more "climate change art". Nothing has driven the reality of how catastrophic climate change will be for me quite like the opening chapter of The Ministry of the Future - https://www.orbitbooks.net/orbit-excerpts/the-ministry-for-the-future/ https://www.orbitbooks.net/orbit-excerpts/the-ministry-for-t...

it_citizen 3y ago
I read that chapter just before a heat dome settled over the pacific north west. Climate change had never felt so real to me.
hh3k0 3y ago
Allow me to recommend you an outstanding novel: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60806778 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60806778
- 1-more 3y ago
  Ooooh if we're doing climate change novels allow me to add 1) almost anything by Paolo Bacigalupi and 2) two of Kim Stanley Robinson's latest three novels 1. PG short story The Tamarisk Hunter audio and text. What if federalism broke down and California paid a water bounty to keep the Colorado river flowing to CA. https://escapepod.org/2013/02/21/ep384-the-tamarisk-hunter/ https://escapepod.org/2013/02/21/ep384-the-tamarisk-hunter/ canonical author's link: https://windupstories.com/books/pump-six-and-other-stories/the-tamarisk-hunter/ https://windupstories.com/books/pump-six-and-other-stories/t... 2. PG novel The Water Knife expanding on The Tamarisk Hunter https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23209924-the-water-knife?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=mIXhLuwA9f&rank=1 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23209924-the-water-knife... 3. KSR novel New York 2140. What if sea rise into the cities led to a financial market on real estate involving day trading on those values? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29570143-new-york-2140?ref=nav_sb_noss_l_13 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29570143-new-york-2140?r... 4. KSR novel Ministry for the Future. What if the UN had to put together a team to keep the earth habitable as heatwaves started causing mass casualty events particularly in the subcontinent? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50998056-the-ministry-for-the-future?ref=nav_sb_noss_l_22 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50998056-the-ministry-fo...
whatshisface 3y ago
"Be thirsty" is not a remotely likely outcome for cutting back on the vast majority of water use patterns... you shower with more water than you drink and our agricultural system is based on aquifer-supplied irrigation.
- monknomo 3y ago
  the aquifers are discharging faster than they are recharging in an awful lot of cases
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    Yes, and almost all of that water is going to non-potable water applications.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

akira2501 3y ago

It attempts to manage obfuscation with more obfuscation. People are results and cost oriented, and I'm sorry to tell the climatologists that psychology is not going to change just because they think they have a good scary story to tell. It does not matter how you twist the story up, what relations you use, or what scale of numbers you decide to use. Until people see a material change, they're not going to make massive changes themselves.

hh3k0 3y ago
> Until people see a material change, they're not going to make massive changes themselves. The beauty of climate change is that it’ll be too late by then. A perfect civilisation killer, designing a better one would be a tall order.
- lisper 3y ago
  I'm not sure "beauty" is the word I would have chosen. But it's really important to emphasize this: by the time things get bad enough to really notice, it will be far too late to stop them from getting much, much worse. Once the permafrost starts to melt and release it's methane, it's game over (and that process has already begun).
  - peteradio 3y ago
    > Once the permafrost starts to melt and release it's methane, it's game over (and that process has already begun). Sources?
    - lisper 3y ago
      https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/permafrost https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/permafrost https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2785/unexpected-future-boost-of-methane-possible-from-arctic-permafrost/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2785/unexpected-future-boost-o... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/driven-by-climate-change-thawing-permafrost-is-radically-changing-the-arctic-landscape https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/driven-by-climate-chang... "Under the surface, something else is active – and it is amplifying global warming. When the ground thaws, microbes begin feasting on organic matter in soils that have been frozen for millennia. These microbes release carbon dioxide and methane, potent greenhouse gases. As those gases escape into the atmosphere, they further warm the climate, creating a feedback loop: Warmer temperatures thaw more soil, releasing more organic material for microbes to feast on and produce more greenhouse gases."

aeternum 3y ago

>Many New Yorks — those with the bad luck to be in South America or parts of India — will be simply unlivable. What about all the potential New Yorks that are currently too cold to live in but could be thriving cities if they were just warmer? More humans die every year of cold than of heat. Just due to the asymmetry of the numbers, there's a good chance that global temp increases will actually save lives, a fact that is rarely mentioned by articles like this.

it_citizen 3y ago
Global temperature increase doesn't mean it gets warmer everywhere and anytime. Weather will just become more extreme and there is a good chance that more people will die from harsher winters too.
- api 3y ago
  "Increased cumulative atmospheric energy" is better but less catchy than global warming. It can manifest as either temperature or kinetic energy.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    "Climate Chaos" should be the term.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > Global temperature increase doesn't mean it gets warmer everywhere and anytime. It does mean that the poles warm more than the tropics--in other words, extreme cold decreases by more than extreme heat increases. > Weather will just become more extreme There is no data showing that extreme weather events are becoming more common with climate change. The cost of such events is going up, but that's because there is a lot more valuable property in areas where the events happen. > there is a good chance that more people will die from harsher winters too. No, there isn't. There is no data showing this and no models predict it.
  - 3y ago

_oskh 3y ago

[flagged]

hh3k0 3y ago
You will live to see the worst of it. Denial will not save you.
- _oskh 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - hh3k0 3y ago
    There is no bet for you to take, but I hope you’ll find the time to think back to your foolishness once when we have resource wars and widespread famines due to simultaneous global breadbasket failure.
    - _oskh 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - worik 3y ago
        They are observations
        User23 3y ago
        They are observations plus modelled corrections. Here's a simple thought experiment. How would you accurately measure the average temperature in a kitchen? Residential? How about commercial? How many sensors would you need? Where would you locate them? How about in a gymnasium when it's empty? Or during a basketball game with packed stands? How about the State of California? The USA? The world? Climate scientists have to think about all of these things, and sadly there isn't one right answer. So they end up making assumptions that are based on their models. That's right, the model drives the measurement! Supposedly those techniques are robust, but naively it feels like there's definitely room for some pretty significant mistakes to be made.

ioblomov 3y ago

https://archive.ph/MxHTT https://archive.ph/MxHTT