quote:

THEY MADE SOME progress at the annual December round of the international negotiations on controlling climate change, held this year in Qatar. They agreed that the countries that cause the warming should compensate the ones that suffer the most from it. The principle, known as the Loss and Damage mechanism, has no numbers attached to it, but it’s a step forward. The only step forward, unfortunately.

In the first phase of these talks, which concluded with the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, the emphasis was on “mitigation”; that is, on stopping the warming by cutting human emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases”. That made good sense, but they didn’t get anywhere. Fifteen years later, emissions are still rising, not falling.

So gradually the emphasis shifted to “adaptation”. If we can’t agree on measures to stop the average global temperature from going up, can we learn to live with it? What’s the plan for developing new crops to withstand the droughts and high temperatures that are coming? What’s the plan for coping with massive floods that drown river valleys and inundate coastlines?

Well, there are no such plans in most places, so the emphasis has shifted again, to compensation. Terrible things will happen to poor countries, so who pays for them? In principle, says the new Loss and Damage mechanism, the rich countries that are responsible for the warming pay. But the “mechanism” has no method for assessing the damage or allocating the blame, so it will become a lawyers’ playground of little use to anybody else.

Besides, the rich countries are going to be fully committed financially in just covering the cost of their own damages. Consider, for example, the US$60 billion that President Barack Obama has just requested from the U.S. Congress to deal with the devastation left by Superstorm Sandy. In practice, there will be very little left to compensate the poor countries for their disasters, even if the rich ones have good intentions.

So if mitigation is a lost cause, and if adaptation will never keep up with the speed at which the climate is going bad, and if compensation is a nice idea whose time will never come, what is the next stage in these climate talks? Prayer? Emigration to another planet? Mass suicide?

There will be a fourth stage to the negotiations, but first we will have to wait until rising temperatures, falling food production and catastrophic storms shake governments out of their present lethargy. That probably won’t happen until quite late in the decade—and by then, at the current rate of emissions, we will be well past the point at which we could hold the rise in average global temperature down to two degrees C (3.6 degrees F).

We will, in fact, be on course for three, four, or even five degrees C of warming, because beyond plus two degrees, the warming that we have already created will trigger “feedbacks”: natural sources of carbon dioxide emissions like melting permafrost which we cannot shut off.

So then, when it’s too late, everybody will really want a deal, but just cutting greenhouse gas emissions won’t be enough any more. We will need some way to hold the temperature down while we deal with our emissions problem, or else the temperature goes so high that mass starvation sets in. The rule of thumb is that we lose 10 percent of global food production for every rise in average global temperature of one degree C.

There probably is a way to stop the warming from passing plus two degrees C and triggering the feedbacks, during the decades it will take to get our emissions back down. It’s called “geo-engineering”: direct human intervention in the climate system. Our greenhouse gas emissions are an inadvertent example of geo-engineering that is pushing the climate in the wrong direction. Another, deliberate kind of geo-engineering may be needed to stop it.

Geo-engineering to hold the heat down is quite possible, though the undesirable side-effects could be very large. The biggest problem is that it’s relatively cheap: dozens of governments could afford to do it—and just one government, acting alone, could do it to the whole atmosphere.

So the fourth phase of the climate talks, probably starting late this decade, will be about when it is time to start geo-engineering, and what techniques should be used, and who controls the process. They won’t agree on that either, so things will drag on further until some government, desperate to save its people from starvation, decides to do it alone, without global agreement. That could cause a major war, of course.

So we had better hope that neutral observers like the fossil fuel industries are right in insisting that global warming is a fraud. Maybe all those scientists really are making it up just to get more money in research grants. That would be a happy ending, so fingers crossed.

The Entire Universe posted:

Oh hey we just got the first accumulated snow of the season in Omaha. 0.6in as measured by the local NWS. This winter's probably going to be like the last one and just like the last one everyone's going to say it's a fluke and global warming is hokum and bunk and a librul conspiracy to make their life all socialistic and poo poo.

Cue me hoping a loving tornado in March skips their whole block except for them, deletes their loving house from intact existence and takes away everything and everyone they ever held dear, after which they receive their insurance payout and rebuild their life only to be hit by another loving tornado but this time in October, some weeks before they and I cross paths again so I can ask them how they feel about global goddamn warming now.

If we're hosed I want these people to learn how incredibly wrong they were in the most painful way possible.

Arkane posted:

Xandu posted:

I swear to god I will ban anyone who tries to derail this thread by saying climate change doesn't exist.

Arkane posted:

I suggest you read what scientists think about that and then report back.

Arkane posted:

How did you go from the first accumulated snow in Omaha to a murder/destruction fantasy about your neighbors?

To address your post, anomalous weather like a warm winter or a cold winter is to be expected and would have very little to do with global warming or a lack thereof. You'd also be very unlikely to be able to personally detect global warming however much you think that your personal experiences have changed. If, for instance, you are 25 years old (1987), the average annual temperature is about .3 degrees warmer than when you were growing up, give or take. That's indiscernible. The global temperature has also remained relatively constant for over a decade now. Don't get fooled by recency bias.

Finally, if you're suggesting a tight correlation between tornado activity and the rise in temperatures, I suggest you read what scientists think about that and then report back. You may not be suggesting that, though, so just ignore this if you're not.

Torka posted:

a lovely poster posted:

You're right, there's no way that 2012 was actually the hottest year on record, it's just in people's heads! "Recency bias", man, that's rich.

Here's a list of the top 10 warmest years on record (I went ahead and included the rest of the past decade as well):
1. 2005
2. 2010
3. 1998
4. 2003
5. 2002
6. 2006
7. 2009
8. 2007
9. 2004
10. 2001
11. 2011
12. 2008
16. 2000

Soon 2012 will be on the top of that list.

Arkane posted:

As to the second point, the temperature anomaly has remained relatively constant for about 11 years now man. Look at any graph if you don't believe. I posted one from the IPCC a few posts ago. You can find the NOAA data here: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/annual.land_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat

Arkane posted:

On a 30 year scale, we're rising at a decadal rate of ~.13C, and warming is likely to continue at a rate none of us yet know.

Arkane posted:

The reason I brought up the constancy in the recent anomaly data is to highlight the fact that whatever extremes he perceives are likely due to local changes that do not represent global trends (such as warm winters or cold winters).

quote:

If you were born in or after April 1985, if you are right now 27 years old or younger, you have never lived through a month that was colder than average

TACD posted:

I just wanted to stop by and drop this incredible fact in your laps:


Source (I'm not clear if that is true globally, or just in the US. It's implied to be true worldwide but I'm not 100% sure.)

The article this is from is actually a month or so old and the rest of it just reiterates previous news about 2012 being a record warm year, but yea. That's something to chew on.

krispykremessuck posted:

A friend of mine would be otherwise one of the smartest people I know, but he told me the other day that it's far more likely that Canada/the Midwest will glaciate before it desertifies... What? Where do theories like this come from?

krispykremessuck posted:

A friend of mine would be otherwise one of the smartest people I know, but he told me the other day that it's far more likely that Canada/the Midwest will glaciate before it desertifies... What? Where do theories like this come from?

goatsecks posted:

I could have sworn I read on these forums that as climate change progresses America will be getting cooler while Europe will be getting warmer but I'm having trouble finding a link to support that.

TACD posted:

Source (I'm not clear if that is true globally, or just in the US. It's implied to be true worldwide but I'm not 100% sure.)

goatsecks posted:

I could have sworn I read on these forums that as climate change progresses America will be getting cooler while Europe will be getting warmer but I'm having trouble finding a link to support that.

krispykremessuck posted:

I was born in April of 1984! In your face everyone younger than me by one year, or more! USA! USA! USA!


I'm too much of a fatalist to ever think anything will get done about this, even though I try to raise awareness among my peers. Even that feels like a waste of time. A friend of mine would be otherwise one of the smartest people I know, but he told me the other day that it's far more likely that Canada/the Midwest will glaciate before it desertifies... What? Where do theories like this come from?

Somaen posted:

I remember reading a few pages back about the air over the Arctic getting warmer, which supposedly contributes to this, can anyone confirm/provide more material to read on that?

Somaen posted:

I live in Lithuania and we have been experiencing an incredibly cold December, right now it's down to a very rough -15 celsius. For our neighbours, it is even worse: http://rt.com/news/russia-freeze-cold-temperature-379/

I'm wondering if this is the manifestation of global climate change in the Eastern European regions. We don't feel much the rising sea level, there is next to none desertification, storms or tornadoes. Perhaps what will be the most noticeable will be really cold winters and really hot summers. I remember reading a few pages back about the air over the Arctic getting warmer, which supposedly contributes to this, can anyone confirm/provide more material to read on that? I'm doing a presentation on climate change in February, I'll have to explain why are we freezing while the lower atmosphere warms up.

Somaen posted:

I live in Lithuania and we have been experiencing an incredibly cold December, right now it's down to a very rough -15 celsius. For our neighbours, it is even worse: http://rt.com/news/russia-freeze-cold-temperature-379/

I'm wondering if this is the manifestation of global climate change in the Eastern European regions. We don't feel much the rising sea level, there is next to none desertification, storms or tornadoes. Perhaps what will be the most noticeable will be really cold winters and really hot summers. I remember reading a few pages back about the air over the Arctic getting warmer, which supposedly contributes to this, can anyone confirm/provide more material to read on that? I'm doing a presentation on climate change in February, I'll have to explain why are we freezing while the lower atmosphere warms up.

OwlBot 2000 posted:

Edit: To put my first point more succinctly: If someone says, "Aha! It's extra cold and snowy this year in my town, so global warming is not true!" they either misunderstand global warming or are being dishonest.

Nenonen posted:

Be warned that I know pretty much nothing about meteorology or climatology. That being said, I think this cold front originates from Siberia in the east, not so much Arctic Sea.

If you look at yearly averages you will see that there are always outlier years so looking at single weather reports is misleading. This graph shows the median annual temperature (blue line) and decade's average (red lines) in Finland, with a climate not too different from Lithuania. Just a tad cooler.



The main change not seen in the graph has been the winters becoming slightly warmer, with summers staying more or less the same. But there is always annual variation, and a very warm year could be followed by an extremely cold one. In this respect I'd say that our weather has become more predictable, in 1991-2010 the annual median stayed between +1 and +4 which is the least variation in the last one hundred years.

TACD posted:

I just wanted to stop by and drop this incredible fact in your laps:


Source (I'm not clear if that is true globally, or just in the US. It's implied to be true worldwide but I'm not 100% sure.)

The article this is from is actually a month or so old and the rest of it just reiterates previous news about 2012 being a record warm year, but yea. That's something to chew on.

quote:

2012 marked the warmest year on record for the contiguous United States with the year consisting of a record warm spring, second warmest summer, fourth warmest winter and a warmer-than-average autumn. The average temperature for 2012 was 55.3°F, 3.2°F above the 20th century average, and 1.0°F above 1998, the previous warmest year.

The average precipitation total for the contiguous U.S. for 2012 was 26.57 inches, 2.57 inches below average, making it the 15th driest year on record for the nation. At its peak in July, the drought of 2012 engulfed 61 percent of the nation with the Mountain West, Great Plains, and Midwest experiencing the most intense drought conditions. The dry conditions proved ideal for wildfires in the West, charring 9.2 million acres — the third highest on record.

The U.S. Climate Extremes Index indicated that 2012 was the second most extreme year on record for the nation. The index, which evaluates extremes in temperature and precipitation, as well as landfalling tropical cyclones, was nearly twice the average value and second only to 1998. To date, 2012 has seen 11 disasters that have reached the $1 billion threshold in losses, to include Sandy, Isaac, and tornado outbreaks experienced in the Great Plains, Texas and Southeast/Ohio Valley.

khwarezm posted:

An opinion piece from the Atlantic by Zachary Karabell on taking a more pragmatic approach to Climate Change. Most people don't seem to be aware that Climate change will entail more than just higher sea levels and warmer summers, and I think the lack of perspective for anywhere outside the Richer west really weakens his points.

Sidakafitz posted:

It seems pretty damning that he can't name a single way we could adapt to climate change, like maybe "Live in domed cities and grow food in temperature-controlled greenhouses" or "Migrate to space".

Cobweb Heart posted:

Okay, I'm a dumb nerd and I need for someone to explain this to me. Is it possible that, a century or two from now, we could actually have domed cities? The idea of tiny, self-contained, self-sustainable communities where temperature is controlled and all power comes from hydroelectric or solar sources seems more attractive by the day. It looks like the future will involve small, sustainable communities one way or another, so we might as well start fracturing nations into thousands of societal bubbles. Wouldn't it be easier to keep the atmosphere a little healthier if it was partitioned off? (I'm deliberately ignoring the world outside of the domes/the inevitable creation of gated, discriminatory bubble communities/etc.)

khwarezm posted:

An opinion piece from the Atlantic by Zachary Karabell on taking a more pragmatic approach to Climate Change. Most people don't seem to be aware that Climate change will entail more than just higher sea levels and warmer summers, and I think the lack of perspective for anywhere outside the Richer west really weakens his points.

a big dumb over-privileged baby who writes for the Atlantic posted:

But what if climate change isn't the disaster we fear but instead one more obstacle that humans can meet, one that may spur innovation and creativity as well as demand ever more resilience? What if it ultimately improves life as we know it?

Zachary "Scumbag" Karabell posted:

It does not, however, follow that the future arc of these changes is disastrous. Unwanted, unwelcome and uneasy? For sure. Potentially lethal? Yes.

Uranium Phoenix posted:

The problem here is Karabell is clearly a capitalist who is unable to see how the system he values (and clearly profits off of) is the root cause of the problem, and how trusting it to mitigate the catastrophic events it caused (again, the scope of which Karabell clearly doesn't understand) will only compound the disaster.

ascii genitals posted:

The thing that makes me most angry about climate denial is the way people scoff and act smug in their denial. There are economic and health reasons that would make switching to efficient, clean technology a great idea.

ohno posted:

Shouldn't we be arguing that "economics be damned," we need to switch our energy sources for the health of the planet and everything on it?

ohno posted:

I agree that climate change is a real issue that needs to be taken care of. But what are the economic benefits of switching from a relatively cheap energy source to something that is more expensive? That just seems like a faulty argument because increased energy prices will be passed on to the consumer, regardless of the method.

Shouldn't we be arguing that "economics be damned," we need to switch our energy sources for the health of the planet and everything on it?