[Discussion] Climate Change

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

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Well, this isn't good, but it's not the worst news you can imagine: Global carbon emissions flatline continues.

Until the number starts going down, though, there's no real reason to be hopeful. We're still dumping more emissions out than ever before these last 3 years. Of course, it could start going up again, too.

Given Trump's campaign promises (and given they're pro-business, so I can see him keeping these) of "No new regulations without removing 2 existing regulations" and "immediately getting out of our existing carbon emission reduction treaties", I suspect this will go up. How much is hard to say. China certainly has no incentive to be better if we're not, other than their own people's health, and I'm not sure what effect local protest/action would have on the Chinese government's/businesses' plans. Other countries however might remain, so the upward swing might not be as high as it could be. Hard to say.

Either way, we're probably F'ed, but I could probably buy some inland property cheap and sell it at a profit when it's suddenly beachfront, I suppose.

I was of the impression that much of the new progress is BECAUSE of China, who seem to have started to take their horrifically poisoned air and soil seriously, but maybe I've just not been paying enough attention.

They are certainly serious enough to brazenly steal the plans to the death star a Scottish-invented water turbine under the guise of a state visit

pyxistyx wrote:

I was of the impression that much of the new progress is BECAUSE of China, who seem to have started to take their horrifically poisoned air and soil seriously, but maybe I've just not been paying enough attention.

They are certainly serious enough to brazenly steal the plans to the death star a Scottish-invented water turbine under the guise of a state visit

Yeah, that Before the Flood documentary explained that China is making more changes than we are. At least, that's the impression I got. It seemed like they're not in denial still overall as a country. I can't even believe I have to type that sentence.

Oh cool, so it's just us f'ing up and maybe other developing nations who were a part of those accords who are might to say, "well if the US doesn't care, why should we?"

Then again, with China pushing so heavy on dominance in other areas of the world in terms of economic power, maybe they'll recognize that poisoning other workforces also isn't going to work well, and thus maintains some level of consistency with its satellite economies... in which case, I might have to root for a Chinese dominated world economy... which feels weird.

China's Nuclear Fission, Nuclear Fusion, and Solar power research has all been heavily funded, not just in the last few years, but for decades. With that in mind it's always seemed like their environmental policy has not been ignoring their negative impact, or pretending it doesn't exist, or imagining that God will fix it when he returns, but instead that they have been making a very conscious and informed decision to seek economic benefits in the face of environmental penalties. It's very easy for Westerners, who made that decision by default through sticking their head in the sand and screaming "humans can't affect the environment, humans can't affect the environment" for a hundred years to say that that's the wrong choice, but I'm not sure that "do as we say, not as we do" argument is that persuasive to a nation on the other side of the industrialized deliminiter.

I think this is important because this is a decision that they can change at any point they decide they would like to, especially for the most iconic of China's pollution problems: their terrible deadly smog. Take it from someone that grew up in California, you can very rapidly clean up smog. Pollution is constantly cleaned up out of the air, take a couple years to install better filters on smokestacks, etc, etc, air pollution instantly fixed. Those decades of air pollution that became water and soil pollution, that's still their, and China will probably have their superfund sites to much more expensively clean that up when that happens.

Demosthenes wrote:

Then again, with China pushing so heavy on dominance in other areas of the world in terms of economic power, maybe they'll recognize that poisoning other workforces also isn't going to work well, and thus maintains some level of consistency with its satellite economies... in which case, I might have to root for a Chinese dominated world economy... which feels weird. :lol:

I will cheer for any country that takes the problem seriously and does something about it. If China takes up the torch and figures things out, that would be amazing, and I will be in support of whatever they do in regards to that. If anything, maybe other countries can shame the US into getting its act together.

Even before the whole election fiasco, I didn't really think the US was going to be the one to lead the charge in mitigating the damage of this thing. Now I've given up any hope on that.

I try not to think about this whole thing too much. It's really bad. Theoretically, it's possible I could live another 50 years or so. If I do, I'm going to see this whole thing play out and likely the world is gonna "burn".

While ignoring climate change leads to a substantial long term loss, meaningful tends to get neglected in favour of short-term economic gains from continuing as though there's nothing wrong.

Without actually knowing much about China, I wonder if China isn't better suited to take action on climate change than most western countries, at least in terms of political will. That is, where there are meaningful elections, governments have an incentive take up short-term views that are incompatible with addressing climate change, even if it is recognized as an important issue. A government that doesn't need to worry about winning elections can actually take up the long view and take meaningful steps to protect its economy on decadal to centennial scales rather than annual scales.

In more we-may-not-be-worried enough news: the sun has set in the Arctic and, unlike every other year, the temperature isn't going down.

IMAGE(https://icons.wxug.com/hurricane/2016/global-sea-ice-area-wipneus-11.17.16.jpg)

oh boy.

Before you go off, that's not a good way to look at the data, according to its source. The problem is that while the numbers for the Arctic and Antarctic were accurate, combining them is literally combining apples and oranges, and thinking you're getting grape juice.

The mechanisms that govern ice formation are very different in each of the polar regions, so the figure above, while dramatic, is not a good indicator of any trend.

Holy mother of... wow!

Robear wrote:

Before you go off, that's not a good way to look at the data, according to its source. The problem is that while the numbers for the Arctic and Antarctic were accurate, combining them is literally combining apples and oranges, and thinking you're getting grape juice.

The mechanisms that govern ice formation are very different in each of the polar regions, so the figure above, while dramatic, is not a good indicator of any trend.

That's correct, the mechanics of ice formation/erosion are different at each pole. However there may be some correlation between the two; it is still being researched.

However, as a summation of our heating planet, I think it is moderately useful. The extra energy in the atmosphere is having an effect, even if the actual processes are dissimilar.

Just as a reference.

Amazing read, although long.

Interesting to see the mental gymnastics to keep voting and being Republican but knowing that climate change is real. The state just signed it's own death warrant with 4 years of Trump.

Stele wrote:

Amazing read, although long.

Interesting to see the mental gymnastics to keep voting and being Republican but knowing that climate change is real. The state just signed it's own death warrant with 4 years of Trump.

To be fair, beach erosion problems - and moronic, ridiculously expensive government "solutions" to them - existed long before climate change was a thing. It's an almost pathological unwillingness to accept the overwhelming and obvious science that coastlines move around, and has very little to do with climate change.

Coastlines do move around naturally. And they move around more when storms intensify and when the local sea level rises. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I'm fairly certain coastal engineers have the base competency to know the difference between coastlines moving and the effects of rising ocean levels. Other than denialism I don't understand why anyone would bring it up.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

I'm fairly certain coastal engineers have the base competency to know the difference between coastlines moving and the effects of rising ocean levels. Other than denialism I don't understand why anyone would bring it up.

Stop infringing on those job-creators' right to kill us all, guys!

Aetius wrote:

To be fair, beach erosion problems - and moronic, ridiculously expensive government "solutions" to them

Miami Beach tourism alone brings in around $25B a year in income to the state. Total costs of beach replenishment/renourishment in all of Florida - about 200 miles - was about $100M in 2012.

If I said you could maintain what is probably around $50B of tourist beaches for $100M a year, would you call it "moronic"?

Robear wrote:
Aetius wrote:

To be fair, beach erosion problems - and moronic, ridiculously expensive government "solutions" to them

Miami Beach tourism alone brings in around $25B a year in income to the state. Total costs of beach replenishment/renourishment in all of Florida - about 200 miles - was about $100M in 2012.

If I said you could maintain what is probably around $50B of tourist beaches for $100M a year, would you call it "moronic"?

Is it private tourist beaches that are doing it for a profit motive, or government, doing it because it's government? Aetius's response may hedge on this

My understanding is that that number is government spending (local, state and Federal) since the beaches referred to are state-owned.

A lot of it is government doing it for profit motives. Florida has no income tax and a large portion of its revenue is from the sales tax paid by tourists, so the government has a strong interest in maintaining Florida's popular attractions.

Some of these beaches also function as wildlife preserves, which is nice. Florida has a lot wrong with it but preserving its beaches really isn't one IMO.

So sand is the new Middle East resource to become addicted to?

Raising money via sales taxes to fund government is not a "profit motive", is it? It's keeping the system going...

Robear wrote:

Raising money via sales taxes to fund government is not a "profit motive", is it? It's keeping the system going...

It was a little tongue in cheek, yeah.

Because it's so easy to tell satire from reality in politics, today?

MrDeVil909 wrote:

I'm fairly certain coastal engineers have the base competency to know the difference between coastlines moving and the effects of rising ocean levels. Other than denialism I don't understand why anyone would bring it up.

You might think that, but if you study the history of the Army Corps of Engineers, you will find a ... spectacular amount of incompetence and ecological damage.

A 1971 book by Arthur Morgan, Dams and other Disasters, was even more critical. The book rips into the Corps for its arrogant and damaging mismanagement. Morgan found that "there have been over the past 100 years consistent and disastrous failures by the Corps in public works areas . . . result[ing] in enormous and unnecessary costs to ecology [and] the taxpayer."34 Morgan was a former chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority and a highly distinguished engineer, who had worked on water resource issues for decades. In his book, he documents how the Corps—with a bullheaded mentality—consistently underestimated the costs of its projects, followed shoddy engineering practices, treated Native American tribes poorly, lied to the public, hid information, pursued environmentally damaging projects, and demonized its enemies in order to silence dissent.

Normal beach movement processes are typically orders of magnitude greater in impact than the increase in sealevel due to climate change. For example, barrier islands in North Carolina can move up to a foot per day, and have been moving steadily west for thousands of years due to rising sea levels unrelated to modern climate change (a sea level increase of more than 100 meters in the last 10,000 years, because we're in an interglacial warming period).

Robear wrote:

If I said you could maintain what is probably around $50B of tourist beaches for $100M a year, would you call it "moronic"?

Absolutely, because you can't "maintain" anything through beach nourishment - it is, at best, a "spit and bailing wire" approach to coastal management. Beach replenishment is hugely disruptive to the coastal ecosystem, and the more research that gets done the worse it appears. Beach nourishment spews out huge plumes of mud into the water that wreak havoc for miles. Nourishment "sand" is often composed of dredged material from other locations, such as river channels, and can be filled with various contaminants. And sometimes, the millions of dollars in sand are gone within days or months due to a storm.

Interesting article on a subject I had not really heard of before. Sounds like a big problem for a lot of the coast.

But man, do not read the comments...