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I don't mean to be rude, but are you aware that CO2 emissions continue to _increase_ year after year? That despite the world's apparent effort, we have actually

I don't mean to be rude, but are you aware that CO2 emissions continue to _increase_ year after year? That despite the world's apparent effort, we have actually made _no_ progress in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions globally? Given this reality, how do you expect to achieve your goals in a reasonable time-frame?

_heimdall 3y ago
Our use of oil has also continued. We like to collectively talk about reduction but its incremental at best, and not enough to keep up with increased consumption elsewhere or actually meaningfully reduce anything. > Given this reality, how do you expect to achieve your goals in a reasonable time-frame? In the context of this thread, there's a bit of a false dichotomy here. You're asking why I should expect that people can choose to make a meaningful reduction in consumption as an alternative to filling the atmosphere with theoretical solutions that have never been tested before and who's impacts are unknown. Are you proposing that because people don't care enough to reduce consumption we should just let the authorities in charge spray a bunch of chemicals into the atmosphere and hope it works?
- seiferteric 3y ago
  There is no false dichotomy because we absolutely should be reducing our emissions as much as possible and I never said otherwise, it's just that it probably won't be enough to achieve any significant cooling effect in a reasonable time scale to prevent the scenario described in TFA. It's possible we will see mass death in the coming decades due to extreme heat events. I am just saying we should be preparing alternative courses of action rather than putting all our eggs in the hope basket.
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    Wouldn't it still be leaning on that hope basket to intervene in the entire atmosphere with an untested solution that may help slow or reverse climate change, but may also have unintended side effects that actually make things worse? One interesting example from very recent research. In just the last couple of years we began enforcing reduced sulfur emissions from diesel motors in international waters. The expectation was that would help with climate change, how couldn't it? Well it turns out that ocean temperatures actually rose in the open ocean where almost all traffic is diesel. The research I suggesting that the sulfur was actually helping to block out some of the sun's energy and was acting as a cooling agent. The well thought out and well reasoned approach to diesel emissions back fired and made things worse.
    - MagnumOpus 3y ago
      > we began enforcing reduced sulfur emissions from diesel motors in international waters. The expectation was that would help with climate change, how couldn't it Nice story, but the drive to reduce SOx and other particulate emissions is not because of climate chance but because of localized health concerns: because of the respiratory impact of SOx and soot to the lungs of people on coastlines and in port cities. By the way, Dieselgate is a similar story - the illegally-increased SOx, NOx and particulate emissions of those diesel engines were created in order to decrease fuel consumption and thus climate change impact. Cracking down on Dieselgate helped people living near the car exhausts but hurt the climate as a secondary effect...
      - _heimdall 3y ago
        Everything I have seen related to sulfur emmisions reduction of diesel engines used in international waters referenced the environmental impacts not respiratory impact. There aren't many humans out in the middle of the ocean, the problem being solved was the massive amounts of diesel emissions being pumped into the atmosphere from the international shipping industry. Dieselgate was a very different problem to solve. VW was caught lying on emissions tests to avoid regulations meant to reduce emissions in populated areas like large cities.
itishappy 3y ago
As a counterpoint, the latest IPCC model saw a reduction in the worst case scenario. We seem likely to have missed the 1.5°C average warming cutoff, but the worse case (8.5°C iirc) seems unlikely as well.

_heimdall 3y ago

Our use of oil has also continued. We like to collectively talk about reduction but its incremental at best, and not enough to keep up with increased consumption elsewhere or actually meaningfully reduce anything. > Given this reality, how do you expect to achieve your goals in a reasonable time-frame? In the context of this thread, there's a bit of a false dichotomy here. You're asking why I should expect that people can choose to make a meaningful reduction in consumption as an alternative to filling the atmosphere with theoretical solutions that have never been tested before and who's impacts are unknown. Are you proposing that because people don't care enough to reduce consumption we should just let the authorities in charge spray a bunch of chemicals into the atmosphere and hope it works?

seiferteric 3y ago
There is no false dichotomy because we absolutely should be reducing our emissions as much as possible and I never said otherwise, it's just that it probably won't be enough to achieve any significant cooling effect in a reasonable time scale to prevent the scenario described in TFA. It's possible we will see mass death in the coming decades due to extreme heat events. I am just saying we should be preparing alternative courses of action rather than putting all our eggs in the hope basket.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  Wouldn't it still be leaning on that hope basket to intervene in the entire atmosphere with an untested solution that may help slow or reverse climate change, but may also have unintended side effects that actually make things worse? One interesting example from very recent research. In just the last couple of years we began enforcing reduced sulfur emissions from diesel motors in international waters. The expectation was that would help with climate change, how couldn't it? Well it turns out that ocean temperatures actually rose in the open ocean where almost all traffic is diesel. The research I suggesting that the sulfur was actually helping to block out some of the sun's energy and was acting as a cooling agent. The well thought out and well reasoned approach to diesel emissions back fired and made things worse.
  - MagnumOpus 3y ago
    > we began enforcing reduced sulfur emissions from diesel motors in international waters. The expectation was that would help with climate change, how couldn't it Nice story, but the drive to reduce SOx and other particulate emissions is not because of climate chance but because of localized health concerns: because of the respiratory impact of SOx and soot to the lungs of people on coastlines and in port cities. By the way, Dieselgate is a similar story - the illegally-increased SOx, NOx and particulate emissions of those diesel engines were created in order to decrease fuel consumption and thus climate change impact. Cracking down on Dieselgate helped people living near the car exhausts but hurt the climate as a secondary effect...
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      Everything I have seen related to sulfur emmisions reduction of diesel engines used in international waters referenced the environmental impacts not respiratory impact. There aren't many humans out in the middle of the ocean, the problem being solved was the massive amounts of diesel emissions being pumped into the atmosphere from the international shipping industry. Dieselgate was a very different problem to solve. VW was caught lying on emissions tests to avoid regulations meant to reduce emissions in populated areas like large cities.

itishappy 3y ago

As a counterpoint, the latest IPCC model saw a reduction in the worst case scenario. We seem likely to have missed the 1.5°C average warming cutoff, but the worse case (8.5°C iirc) seems unlikely as well.