
This thread is just to post interesting news, thoughts, opinions about climate change.
I concur with Robear, and will add that another facet to the situation is the problem with communicating how tipping points work.
Even if CO2 in the atmosphere were the "only" problem, we are nowhere near a solution to decarbonize the atmosphere rapidly enough to solve the crisis by immediately ending all humanity-generated CO2 emissions. We'd still be looking at decades or more of further warming and the impacts that will have.
Throw tipping points into the calculus, and what humanity just doesn't get is that if we allow this to go too far, even a techno-magic solution to atmospheric CO2 won't stop the runaway train because it's now gone well past what the brakes could possibly tolerate.
Yes, I'm spouting "doomer" info, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. How much permafrost melt constitutes a tipping point? How much ice melt (Greenland/Antarctica/mountain glaciers)? How much biosphere loss? What about the AMOC crashing, how readily will it start back up? How much arctic ocean heating before methane release outstrips what immediate CO2 recapture could even solve?
We don't truly know the answer to any of these questions, nor do we know if any of these tipping points have already been crossed. So that means that humanity needs to assume the worst and act decisively, immediately, and in a greater concerted effort than at any point in all of human history. We have needed to do so for decades, and we're still failing to do so because of politics and societal inertia.
Yeah, I fear a million people could die in a single climate related event, and enough of the Republican base, right-wing media, R politicians, and profit-focused corporations would still continue to effectively oppose meaningful change. They'd sooner die themselves than admit the Democrats were right about something, and they were wrong. Hell, they'd sooner see their children die (see mass shootings).
More than a million people died in the United States from COVID 19, and look at how much anti-vaccine and anti-mask propaganda and sentiment there still is. A million people dying from climate change will change nothing.
Just like school shootings, there is no amount of death that will shock the Republicans into taking action. In large part because the deaths are not shocking to them at all, they are the expected price that Republicans are more than willing to have us pay.
I'm in the "no amount of death will convince people" camp.
First off, too many people (and JOURNALISTS, forcrissakes) think this is just a "natural variation." Somehow "highest temperatures ever recorded" don't sink in with these folks.
More importantly though, human nature. I had lunch with my mom today, and she discussed a recent experience she had on the Nextdoor app, where her neighbors were all complaining about how high their electric bills were. Dozens of complaints. Most accused the power company of being greedy. and some said the AZ Corporation Commision (which sets energy prices) should do something.
NOBODY mentioned the last two months being the hottest on record. The average person just can't see past the end of their own nose.
I mean, both things are true. People are using more power to cool/heat their homes AND power companies are gouging customers in their endless search for higher profits.
That's one of the things the Arizona Corporation Commission is meant to prevent. We vote for them, and they set utility rates. TEP can't get any greedier than our elected commissioners will allow.
Also, the fact that nobody acknowledged that they were using more power due to two months of record breaking heat was more the point.
I have a feeling that in about 30 years we're going to actually try to block the sun, and it will either do nothing or work too well.
In the years before that, we'll heavily subsidize our most heavily polluting industries in a vain attempt to rely on smog and its apparent cooling effects.
That's one of the things the Arizona Corporation Commission is meant to prevent. We vote for them, and they set utility rates. TEP can't get any greedier than our elected commissioners will allow.
Also, the fact that nobody acknowledged that they were using more power due to two months of record breaking heat was more the point.
If it's anything like how my state does it, when they "set" the rate, they're actually just picking from the available offers given to them by the various power supplying companies. They don't actually control how much the companies charge or try to negotiate with them for lower costs. So it's not a competition to see which company can provide the customers with the lowest rate, it's a competition to see how high a rate a company can charge and still beat out the other offers.
That's one of the things the Arizona Corporation Commission is meant to prevent. We vote for them, and they set utility rates. TEP can't get any greedier than our elected commissioners will allow.
Also, the fact that nobody acknowledged that they were using more power due to two months of record breaking heat was more the point.
Was the irony of complaining it is hot while they live in a desert lost on them too?
I lived through the 60's and 70's and let me tell you, smog cools nothing.
There is some data that suggests it could, but I doubt it would be worth the uh... the cancer stuff.
Also, it's climate cooling. A big smog episode increases humidity, and that means it feels hotter at ground level. But I was aware of the sulfate research. Mostly I was just complaining that the glib idea that because sulfates reflect sunlight, smog would be helpful, does not seem to me to be a productive approach.
If it's anything like how my state does it, when they "set" the rate, they're actually just picking from the available offers given to them by the various power supplying companies. They don't actually control how much the companies charge or try to negotiate with them for lower costs.
The AZ corporation commission does set rates. The rates requested by the utility companies are one guideline. They consider a variety of impacts on rate increases: capital investments by power companies to maintain infrastructure, buildout of new renewable energy production and balancing those costs against federal subsidies, weighing increased customer utility costs against inflation, even environmental concerns. In 2017 they were a target of a lawsuit by Arizona's biggest power utility because they set rates significantly below what the utility was requesting. The power company won some concessions, some of those were reversed on appeal.
However, like all elected regulatory bodies, the composition of the commission does play a role in how they set and/or approve rate increases. Currently it's a bit tilted towards corporate interests with five republican and one democratic commissioner. Despite that, there have been recent rulings that definitely benefit energy consumers more than producers.
There have also been issues in the past with conflict of interest and regulatory capture. They're not always a rubber stamp for utility rate increases. But people being people, some election cycles it can seem that way.
So while Hurricane Hillary was making landfall in California today, there was a 5.1 earthquake north of LA.
Uh... not good.
From the region of the world that brought you Barbenheimer comes... Hurriquake!
Now you just need...
Climate change has taken a bit of a backseat in Australia as a social issue recently; I suspect it's simply due to a change in national government priorities (affordable housing and cost of living) and the easing of weather extremes in the lull between shifting from La Nina to El Nino phases in our part of the world. Once the country is on fire again in the next 1-2 years it'll probably grab mainstream attention again.
This year's ski season has been fairly abysmal. Most of the resorts (not that Australia has many of them) had less than average snowfall. About a week ago, when we went to one of the largest resorts, quite a few trails were closed and a fair bit of grass and mud was on display. Not sure if this is going to be the norm but it wouldn't surprise me given how extreme global weather has been in the past 3 years. It feels like the last 2 years saw a dramatic intensification of heat waves / flooding everywhere.
Yeah, we are already deep into the effects we hoped not to see for many decades. Sucks to be us. Or... It will, not that far in the future.
Summer in my region has been mild this year. Only got a couple of times with high temperature just lasting only for a couple of days.
A welcome break from the usual Summer heat waves.
‘Gobsmackingly bananas’: scientists stunned by planet’s record September heat
Global temperatures soared to a new record in September by a huge margin, stunning scientists and leading one to describe it as “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas”.
The hottest September on record follows the hottest August and hottest July, with the latter being the hottest month ever recorded. The high temperatures have driven heatwaves and wildfires across the world.
September 2023 beat the previous record for that month by 0.5C, the largest jump in temperature ever seen. September was about 1.8C warmer than pre-industrial levels. Datasets from European and Japanese scientists confirm the leap.
The heat is the result of the continuing high levels of carbon dioxide emissions combined with a rapid flip of the planet’s biggest natural climate phenomenon, El Niño. The previous three years saw La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean, which lowers global temperature by a few tenths of a degree as more heat is stored in the ocean.
Conditions have now rebounded to an El Niño event, which releases ocean heat and drives up temperatures. It’s all but certain that 2023 will be the hottest on record and 2024 may even exceed that, as the heating impact of El Niño is felt most in the year after it begins.
Pred - thanks for posting some text. To be honest every time you just post a video and run, I never watch the video.
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