[Discussion] Climate Change

This thread is just to post interesting news, thoughts, opinions about climate change.

Imminent? I dunno. The back-from-the-dead Biden agenda that will hit Congress next week has a proviso that raises oil/gas lease royalties on Federal land by about 30%, and also disallows wind leases on Federal land unless an equivalent gas/oil lease auction has already occurred. So it maintains the industry in some ways.

Also I think that the tailing off of fossil fuels will be very long. But green energy is growing very quickly so the net effect is a large positive for decarbonizing. The estimate I saw is that the bill will have 3-4x the value of it's cost in benefits, which is a *massively* good deal, so I'm hoping it really does pass.

Manchin of course had to protect his fossil industry sponsors.

Prederick wrote:

Hey Arthur, what's the European Pacific Northwest weather forecast looking like?

(This has recurring meme potential.)

US Pacific north-west may see triple-digit temperatures as heatwave continues

Heatwave duration records could be broken in the US Pacific north-west this week, as temperatures near triple digits are forecast to extend into the weekend.

“For the next several days through Saturday we’re going to be within a few degrees of 100F every day,” said Colby Neuman, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service (NWS) in Portland, Oregon.

Temperatures in Oregon’s largest city were forecast to soar to 101F (38.3C) again on Friday. On Tuesday, Portland set a daily record of 102F (38.9C). Seattle also reported a new record daily high of 94F (34.4C). The heat spell was forecast to last into Saturday in western Washington as well.

The NWS extended heat warnings from Thursday through Saturday evening.

The duration of the heatwave puts Portland “in the running” for tying its longest streak of six consecutive days of 95F (35C) or higher, Neuman said.

Robear wrote:

Manchin of course had to protect his fossil industry sponsors.

Dude also has his own coal company he wants to protect.

Until we come up with an energy source of comparable energy density to fossil fuels they will continue to be our chief source of energy.

I think you misunderstand what I am saying.

The increased adverse conditions in nature like mass migrations from unlivable areas, the next pandemic that overnight reduces oil consumption into negative pricing, and outages will hasten the public desire for sustainable products and practices. The holdouts will increase their consumption but they will be increasingly marginalized and countered.

Don't get me wrong. The public on the whole won't think they are saving the planet but their habits will be forced by nature and the environment to change.

OG, I was including his company in his "sponsors", although I don't think he will *directly* benefit, at least not through that drilling on Federal land provision.

Maverickz wrote:

Until we come up with an energy source of comparable energy density to fossil fuels they will continue to be our chief source of energy.

I am dubious of this. Energy density relates to the storage of fuels, and so it matters for things like cars, and tanks for heating fuels, storage areas for power plants and volume/throughput of rail and truck transport of fuel, things like that. It does not matter so much for generation onto the grid; in fact, with power sources that are not the result of combustion, one can argue that an entire expensive system of fuel supply is removed from play. Solar farms, and wind power don't have to worry about transporting and storing fuels; hydroelectric dams of course depend on stored water, but that's for continuous operation, not for combustion of the water (ie, fuel energy density like coal or oil).

Further, the energy density of fuel matters for vehicles for range. The use of even a small battery can double or triple the efficiency of a car, for example (this is the case for hybrids, where a car that gets about 30mpg in an all-gas format goes to 50mpg or more with a battery that by itself has a range of 1-2 miles). A good electric charging infrastructure and cars that can do around 200 miles on a charge can fit a majority of uses in the US, bypassing the need to carry gasoline that has been pumped out, transported, stored, refined, stored, transported, transported again and put into the vehicle.

So energy density of fuel is not by any means the only consideration of efficiencies for powering vehicles. Similar thoughts apply to electric power generation; the reduced support infrastructure for solar/wind/hydro has efficiencies that can balance out or even exceed those of combustion generation, I think.

But the worrying part of your statement is the implicit assumption that burning fossil fuels is not actually harmful enough to stop companies from doing it over time. The primary consideration these days should be carbon output. We should not just say "Oh, coal is cheaper, we'll stick with that", because we really will crash civilization in a few generations with that understanding. We have to change the way we think; cost is no longer the primary driver for choosing a power source, IF we want to continue to have a world that supports billions of people in anything like the civilizations we have today.

I think the biggest obstacle to switching over now is that the grids need to be improved and have more connections between them so they can handle moving around the amount of power we'd need to if we made the switch. That's what the power companies that own fossil fuel burning plants are spending their pr money to fight now. They like to astroturf by providing funding to NIMBYs and smaller, local environmental groups that try to block projects that'd improve the grid because they don’t like the idea of cutting down trees to run high capacity power lines and don't want to "ruin the view".

Robear wrote:
Maverickz wrote:

Until we come up with an energy source of comparable energy density to fossil fuels they will continue to be our chief source of energy.

I am dubious of this. Energy density relates to the storage of fuels, and so it matters for things like cars, and tanks for heating fuels, storage areas for power plants and volume/throughput of rail and truck transport of fuel, things like that. It does not matter so much for generation onto the grid; in fact, with power sources that are not the result of combustion, one can argue that an entire expensive system of fuel supply is removed from play. Solar farms, and wind power don't have to worry about transporting and storing fuels; hydroelectric dams of course depend on stored water, but that's for continuous operation, not for combustion of the water (ie, fuel energy density like coal or oil).

Also, there's nuclear. A single 10-gram pellet of nuclear fuel produces about as much electricity as a literal ton of coal. It's far more energy dense than anything else we could ever use. And we've had nuclear plants for over 60 years, so it's not like we don't know how they work with the grid.

Agreed, Stengah. That's why there's grid improvements in the Biden plan. $2B for transmission projects in "national interest corridors", $760M for interstate power lines, and $100M for wind power transmission planning and analysis.

Keldar, the energy density of nuclear is immense, but the cost per kilowatt-hour is nearly the highest of all technologies we use, for fairly obvious reasons. Solar is about 5x-6x less expensive than standard nuclear power, for example. Onshore wind is about double solar as of a few years ago. The whole point here is that we can no longer use *just* price as a guide. We need to factor in emissions. While you'd think that that would put nuclear at the top of the heap, the reality is that it's *so* expensive that just putting in more solar and wind farms is far more efficient.

The cost of advanced nuclear, so far, is about 1/3 less than regular nuclear technology. (As far as I can find.) This is probably one reason the Biden bill provides funding for more research and development of it. So it's not neglected.

I'm kind of surprised folks in this discussion are not losing their minds with joy over this new bill. If it passes, it will be the most significant advance in climate change mitigation ever in the US, and it will have a large impact on how other countries handle their part of the challenge too. Dancing in the streets stuff, in my opinion.

Robear wrote:

I'm kind of surprised folks in this discussion are not losing their minds with joy over this new bill. If it passes, it will be the most significant advance in climate change mitigation ever in the US, and it will have a large impact on how other countries handle their part of the challenge too. Dancing in the streets stuff, in my opinion.

We're holding out breaths waiting for the last-second Lucy football pull. Once we know Charlie is safe we'll take to the streets.

Well put

Also, because I am mister pessimist, we don’t have McCain anymore to save this bill from trump2 like we did for Obamacare.

But: I trust you, Robear, and if you’re excited then I’m excited.

JLS wrote:
Robear wrote:

I'm kind of surprised folks in this discussion are not losing their minds with joy over this new bill. If it passes, it will be the most significant advance in climate change mitigation ever in the US, and it will have a large impact on how other countries handle their part of the challenge too. Dancing in the streets stuff, in my opinion.

We're holding out breaths waiting for the last-second Lucy football pull. Once we know Charlie is safe we'll take to the streets.

This is part of it for me.

The other part is that, much like with the passing of the ACA, I worry that while many of the provisions in this new bill are important and worth cheering for, the bill itself will be treated by the Democrats in general as "Mission Accomplished" with little urgency to press the fight.

Meanwhile, this is merely an important but tentative step towards the drastic measures the US (and the rest of the world) needs to take if we're to have any hope in mitigating the climate crisis -- assuming it isn't already at the point of runaway feedback loops via tipping points already crossed.

Yeah, I know, I'm a real buzzkill, but I'm still waiting to see a point in my life where the climate crisis no longer meets or exceeds the worst-case scenarios of the general climatologist community's projections, so I believe I've plenty of evidence to support my lack of optimism.

Also waiting for SCOTUS to just declare the whole thing unconstitutional on bullsh*t grounds.

Oh, I am worried about the football pull. But in the meantime the bill looks really good, and if they can keep Sinema on board, it'll be fine. We will see next week.

Farscry wrote:

Yeah, I know, I'm a real buzzkill, but I'm still waiting to see a point in my life where the climate crisis no longer meets or exceeds the worst-case scenarios of the general climatologist community's projections, so I believe I've plenty of evidence to support my lack of optimism.

Unfortunately, I don't think any of us reading this will see that change in our lifetimes. Maybe at the very end, but not in the next couple of decades, barring some kind of technological miracle coupled with intense regulatory regimes.

I'm still pessimistic due to the recent f*ckery in my state, where power companies who wanted to protect the profits of their fossil fuel burning plants in the area were successfully able to not only stop all work on an energy corridor that'd bring hydro-generated power to New England, they managed to sneak in language that would make it far easier for them to kill any future projects before they even started. Previously, projects like the one in question were approved by the governor and several state departments, and the state congress only had to vote on it if it was determined the project would have a significant environmental impact on the state owned land they ran through. Now any project on state land has to get 2/3rd approval in the state congress no matter what, making it far easier for the Republican minority to block any future projects to improve the grid. So the football yank here at least is that it doesn't matter how much federal money Biden puts towards improvements if the states won't allow the projects to be built.

Well, there are things like multilayered solar cells, solid state batteries, mini nuclear reactors, and better wind adoption that each have big potential. Combined, I don't see how the world doesn't change drastically for the better.
They are even making advances that look to replace silicon in computers with better conductivity and heat management.

JLS wrote:
Robear wrote:

I'm kind of surprised folks in this discussion are not losing their minds with joy over this new bill. If it passes, it will be the most significant advance in climate change mitigation ever in the US, and it will have a large impact on how other countries handle their part of the challenge too. Dancing in the streets stuff, in my opinion.

We're holding out breaths waiting for the last-second Lucy football pull. Once we know Charlie is safe we'll take to the streets.

I’m fully expecting Sinema to use her unduly influential position as the final vote to extort some changes to the bill. This will give Manchin cover to pull support since it’s “not the bill I agreed to.”

gewy wrote:
JLS wrote:
Robear wrote:

I'm kind of surprised folks in this discussion are not losing their minds with joy over this new bill. If it passes, it will be the most significant advance in climate change mitigation ever in the US, and it will have a large impact on how other countries handle their part of the challenge too. Dancing in the streets stuff, in my opinion.

We're holding out breaths waiting for the last-second Lucy football pull. Once we know Charlie is safe we'll take to the streets.

I’m fully expecting Sinema to use her unduly influential position as the final vote to extort some changes to the bill. This will give Manchin cover to pull support since it’s “not the bill I agreed to.”

Spoiler tags, man! Come on!

Workers in Iraq get day off as temperatures pass 50C

State employees in many parts of Iraq have been given a day off work as temperatures rise to above 50C (122F) in several areas, local media report.

Several of the country's cities topped the list of the hottest places in the world on Thursday.

As a result of the scorching heat, at least 10 provinces suspended work for most state employees, Kurdistan24 said.

A heatwave in the country has been ongoing since mid-July and is forecast to continue.

Burning heat is not unusual in Iraq, as one of the hottest places on Earth. But residents say conditions are worsening.

In the southern port of Basra, where temperatures are particularly high, a four-day holiday for state employees has begun.

Though offices are shut for many employees, many say they will continue to suffer as regular power cuts mean that air conditioning is often unavailable.

This year stifling dust storms have also increased, obstructing the sky and causing the suspension of services.

Heatwaves have become more frequent, more intense, and last longer because of human-induced climate change.

The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.

Iraq has been ranked as one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change in the Middle East by the UN.

I've said it before, but serious, genuine concern about migration means serious concern about climate change. Millions of people in the countries that will be affected first and most severely by CC simply aren't going to sit at home and die (as some might hope).

How does one go about buying property and land in northern Canada?

TheGameguru wrote:

How does one go about buying property and land in northern Canada?

Iceland has a lot of geothermal power.

TheGameguru wrote:

How does one go about buying property and land in northern Canada?

How many beaver pelts do you have already?

I think you can just pee on it and it's yours.

"L'etat civil du Quebec, c'est le mien!" - PM Trudeau after a long night of drinking in the vieille ville, probably. Or at least the handy tree...

Climate Change Is Supercharging Most Infectious Diseases, New Study Finds

More than half of all human infectious diseases in recorded history — Lyme, West Nile, hantavirus, typhoid, HIV and influenza, to name a few — have been exacerbated by the mounting impacts of greenhouse gas-driven climate change.

That is the sobering conclusion of a new, first-of-its-kind paper that combed through more than 70,000 scientific studies to pinpoint how an array of climate hazards have impacted 375 pathogenic diseases known to have impacted humans. A team of 11 researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa conducted the analysis, which was published Monday in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Climate Change.

Well that's a pissah.