I'm very curious how you define the end of the world. Humans won't become extinct. The Earth itself will still be here. But 4°C is absolutely catastrophic. This article didn't really touch on how...
I'm very curious how you define the end of the world.
Humans won't become extinct. The Earth itself will still be here. But 4°C is absolutely catastrophic. This article didn't really touch on how much of a soft-apocalypse that would be.
I'm really concerned about northern migration. Canada and Siberia are going to start to look pretty sexy to the US and China in the future. All four regions are nuclear. By the time such a mass...
I'm really concerned about northern migration.
Canada and Siberia are going to start to look pretty sexy to the US and China in the future. All four regions are nuclear. By the time such a mass migration is on the table, at least one of them might not be above splitting the atom as a means of self preservation.
If we let things get so bad that China or the US go north, well, there might not be a way for civilization to come back from that. At least, not a level of civilization such as we have today.
There are nuclear-armed submarines which ensure the MAD doctrine is upheld. If it gets to the point of armed combat over the habitability of the arctic territories, I doubt there would be much...
There are nuclear-armed submarines which ensure the MAD doctrine is upheld.
If it gets to the point of armed combat over the habitability of the arctic territories, I doubt there would be much civilization left to save.
4C by 2100 means 7C is on the way in my opinion. At 7C there is mathematical modeling of plankton, which another paper builds upon to predict complete human extinction within ~3600 years of 7C...
4C by 2100 means 7C is on the way in my opinion. At 7C there is mathematical modeling of plankton, which another paper builds upon to predict complete human extinction within ~3600 years of 7C ocean temp rise.
To sum it up, plankton makes two thirds of our oxygen supply. Plankton will die at higher temps, oxygen levels will lower until we are all dead or living in domes. Good times.
4°C would have our carbon cycle well into reversing, encouraging more warming, and further enable releasing all that methane in our permafrost, encouraging more warming. Complete runaway of global...
4°C would have our carbon cycle well into reversing, encouraging more warming, and further enable releasing all that methane in our permafrost, encouraging more warming. Complete runaway of global temperatures.
I agree. While the global economy is still functioning, we need to take active measures like a solar shade, carbon sequestration, and even paying off shareholders to leave the fossil fuels in the...
I agree. While the global economy is still functioning, we need to take active measures like a solar shade, carbon sequestration, and even paying off shareholders to leave the fossil fuels in the ground.
Edit: another thing, as effed as Elon Musk is these days, we also need to build a couple hundred gigafactories ASAP. There should be major tax incentives for that increased capacity.
This is a bit of a tangent, because I'm sure you just meant ramping up battery production in general, but I don't think Lithium-Ion batteries are what we should be using as a universal power...
Edit: another thing, as effed as Elon Musk is these days, we also need to build a couple hundred gigafactories ASAP. There should be major tax incentives for that increased capacity.
This is a bit of a tangent, because I'm sure you just meant ramping up battery production in general, but I don't think Lithium-Ion batteries are what we should be using as a universal power storage solution. They're the only real option when you're weight or volume constrained, but they rely on a lot of rare metals like cobalt (and even lithium itself, which while not rare in the absolute sense, is only mined in a few countries), so much so that even just electrifying all the cars currently in use would strain our mining operations to the limit. That, and the charge cycle degradation makes them almost a non-starter for large scale grid storage applications, even if it weren't for their high cost per kWh. What we need to be looking at instead is ramping up production of batteries with alternative chemistries for use in situations where weight is not a factor, stuff like salt water and flow batteries that are cheaper to produce, safer, require no significant inputs of rare materials, and suffer no degradation from cycling. The only reason the powerwall uses lithium ion is because Tesla's already producing them in-house by the MWh.
Yeah I can't agree with you on the gigafactory thing. It's a solution that specifically works for South Australia. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity as an example is cheaper and way better—then the...
Yeah I can't agree with you on the gigafactory thing. It's a solution that specifically works for South Australia. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity as an example is cheaper and way better—then the mountain of lithium needed for batteries—for the environment.
Sure, pumped hydro is great in places where hydro exists. Germany is pumping gas into old mines to store the potential energy that way... this is all on the mega-scale of electric gen plants. But...
Sure, pumped hydro is great in places where hydro exists. Germany is pumping gas into old mines to store the potential energy that way... this is all on the mega-scale of electric gen plants.
But we also need to replace car, ship, and airplane energy with non carbon energy storage. Even if the origin comes from the intermediate sources mentioned above, or even if we crack utility-scale fusion. Just moving the car fleet over the next twenty years to electric will require dozens of gigafactories making batteries, ultra capacitors, or whatever. The point is that we need to invest as much money into electric storage as we currently invest in oil exploration.
Also, afaik, economies of scale will make a huge difference in the economics of using even Lithium Ion cells in stationary storage situations outside of the unique South Australia scenario.
Edit: we also need to generate and distribute the energy to begin with, which is laughably easy. The USA could be powered by 200x200 miles of solar array. Then you just need to store and distribute that energy in battery, pumped hydro, and HVDC. It is all a crazy investment until you put it into perspective with what we spend on oil exploration and extraction.
Some climate models treat land surface as inert, and therefore miss something that's very important: There is an immense amount of carbon stored in the soil, on the scale of something like double...
Exemplary
Some climate models treat land surface as inert, and therefore miss something that's very important: There is an immense amount of carbon stored in the soil, on the scale of something like double the amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere. The soil contains carbon largely derived from the remains of plant matter.
As the oceans warm, they won't be able to absorb as much carbon dioxide. This leads to more CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere, leading to more warming.
When the temperature warms, bacteria accelerate the breaking down of carbon stored in the soil, and release it into the atmosphere.
Once we get to a 3°C increase in global temperature—which could occur as soon as 2050—vegetation and the soil stop absorbing more carbon than is released through decay. This effectively reverses the carbon cycle.
The Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research found in Acceleration of global warming due to carbon-cycle feedbacks in a coupled model that this would be enough to add another 250ppm of carbon to the atmosphere by 2100, on top of everything else. The Hadley model went from 4° to 5.5°C when taking this into account.
This is what the world is supposed to look like with 4°C: https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/what-the-world-will-look-like-4degc-warmer (Source is the New Scientist)
This is what the world is supposed to look like with 4°C:
While getting lost in the impending doom factor of this story is attractive, let’s try to look at the more immediate picture. Is this the final nail on the coffin of climate change deniers? Does...
While getting lost in the impending doom factor of this story is attractive, let’s try to look at the more immediate picture.
Is this the final nail on the coffin of climate change deniers? Does this mean that actual progresss on this issue can begin?
The only thing that can cause any real progress is real damages so the market has to react. Hurricanes are already gently rapping, rapping at our chamber door.
The only thing that can cause any real progress is real damages so the market has to react.
Hurricanes are already gently rapping, rapping at our chamber door.
But there are things we can do. Not only is that a scientific fact, but it’s human nature isn’t it? We are the most adaptable species on the planet. We have solutions, and we need to try them out....
But there are things we can do. Not only is that a scientific fact, but it’s human nature isn’t it? We are the most adaptable species on the planet. We have solutions, and we need to try them out.
I feel that climate change denial is no longer an option in arguments, after this event. This is a huge step forward.
Let’s assume Trump does not get re-elected. I was looking for a pertinent very recent quote which was something like “If we (GOP) don’t pass legislation about climate change, then it will be the...
Let’s assume Trump does not get re-elected. I was looking for a pertinent very recent quote which was something like “If we (GOP) don’t pass legislation about climate change, then it will be the Democrats’ laws that are passed.” I could not find it at the moment, but the closest I could find was this Forbes piece on how the GOP must be moved, and will move on the topic.
My point is that a crack in wall has appeared with this Trump-based report, and there are other factors moving even the GOP at large to action.
If we're thinking of the same thing iirc it was the stress related to thinking about basic needs, like food, shelter, protection that keeps your brain constantly occupied to the point of taking...
If we're thinking of the same thing iirc it was the stress related to thinking about basic needs, like food, shelter, protection that keeps your brain constantly occupied to the point of taking away resources form all other functions. Again iirc it was a study measuring the IQ of farmers in India from year to year against changes in the harvest, where one year could lead to relative wealth and the next the opposite. Being poor isn't the reason rather the lack of physical/mental security.
Can't read the article, please tell me that's in Fahrenheit. 7ºC is "literal end of the world"-tier.
4°C is very very bad too. Just not the end of the world.
I'm very curious how you define the end of the world.
Humans won't become extinct. The Earth itself will still be here. But 4°C is absolutely catastrophic. This article didn't really touch on how much of a soft-apocalypse that would be.
Packing up and moving every coastal city where 80% of all humans live is no big deal, right? :P
I'm really concerned about northern migration.
Canada and Siberia are going to start to look pretty sexy to the US and China in the future. All four regions are nuclear. By the time such a mass migration is on the table, at least one of them might not be above splitting the atom as a means of self preservation.
If we let things get so bad that China or the US go north, well, there might not be a way for civilization to come back from that. At least, not a level of civilization such as we have today.
There are nuclear-armed submarines which ensure the MAD doctrine is upheld.
If it gets to the point of armed combat over the habitability of the arctic territories, I doubt there would be much civilization left to save.
4C by 2100 means 7C is on the way in my opinion. At 7C there is mathematical modeling of plankton, which another paper builds upon to predict complete human extinction within ~3600 years of 7C ocean temp rise.
To sum it up, plankton makes two thirds of our oxygen supply. Plankton will die at higher temps, oxygen levels will lower until we are all dead or living in domes. Good times.
4°C would have our carbon cycle well into reversing, encouraging more warming, and further enable releasing all that methane in our permafrost, encouraging more warming. Complete runaway of global temperatures.
We can't let things get this bad.
I agree. While the global economy is still functioning, we need to take active measures like a solar shade, carbon sequestration, and even paying off shareholders to leave the fossil fuels in the ground.
Edit: another thing, as effed as Elon Musk is these days, we also need to build a couple hundred gigafactories ASAP. There should be major tax incentives for that increased capacity.
This is a bit of a tangent, because I'm sure you just meant ramping up battery production in general, but I don't think Lithium-Ion batteries are what we should be using as a universal power storage solution. They're the only real option when you're weight or volume constrained, but they rely on a lot of rare metals like cobalt (and even lithium itself, which while not rare in the absolute sense, is only mined in a few countries), so much so that even just electrifying all the cars currently in use would strain our mining operations to the limit. That, and the charge cycle degradation makes them almost a non-starter for large scale grid storage applications, even if it weren't for their high cost per kWh. What we need to be looking at instead is ramping up production of batteries with alternative chemistries for use in situations where weight is not a factor, stuff like salt water and flow batteries that are cheaper to produce, safer, require no significant inputs of rare materials, and suffer no degradation from cycling. The only reason the powerwall uses lithium ion is because Tesla's already producing them in-house by the MWh.
Yeah I can't agree with you on the gigafactory thing. It's a solution that specifically works for South Australia. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity as an example is cheaper and way better—then the mountain of lithium needed for batteries—for the environment.
Sure, pumped hydro is great in places where hydro exists. Germany is pumping gas into old mines to store the potential energy that way... this is all on the mega-scale of electric gen plants.
But we also need to replace car, ship, and airplane energy with non carbon energy storage. Even if the origin comes from the intermediate sources mentioned above, or even if we crack utility-scale fusion. Just moving the car fleet over the next twenty years to electric will require dozens of gigafactories making batteries, ultra capacitors, or whatever. The point is that we need to invest as much money into electric storage as we currently invest in oil exploration.
Also, afaik, economies of scale will make a huge difference in the economics of using even Lithium Ion cells in stationary storage situations outside of the unique South Australia scenario.
Edit: we also need to generate and distribute the energy to begin with, which is laughably easy. The USA could be powered by 200x200 miles of solar array. Then you just need to store and distribute that energy in battery, pumped hydro, and HVDC. It is all a crazy investment until you put it into perspective with what we spend on oil exploration and extraction.
Why would the carbon cycle reverse? What does it even mean that it reverses?
Some climate models treat land surface as inert, and therefore miss something that's very important: There is an immense amount of carbon stored in the soil, on the scale of something like double the amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere. The soil contains carbon largely derived from the remains of plant matter.
As the oceans warm, they won't be able to absorb as much carbon dioxide. This leads to more CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere, leading to more warming.
When the temperature warms, bacteria accelerate the breaking down of carbon stored in the soil, and release it into the atmosphere.
Once we get to a 3°C increase in global temperature—which could occur as soon as 2050—vegetation and the soil stop absorbing more carbon than is released through decay. This effectively reverses the carbon cycle.
The Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research found in Acceleration of global warming due to carbon-cycle feedbacks in a coupled model that this would be enough to add another 250ppm of carbon to the atmosphere by 2100, on top of everything else. The Hadley model went from 4° to 5.5°C when taking this into account.
Thanks for the explanation. :-)
This is what the world is supposed to look like with 4°C:
https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/what-the-world-will-look-like-4degc-warmer
(Source is the New Scientist)
While getting lost in the impending doom factor of this story is attractive, let’s try to look at the more immediate picture.
Is this the final nail on the coffin of climate change deniers? Does this mean that actual progresss on this issue can begin?
The only thing that can cause any real progress is real damages so the market has to react.
Hurricanes are already gently rapping, rapping at our chamber door.
My comment's noise, but I just love the way you put this. Poe seems appropriate.
But there are things we can do. Not only is that a scientific fact, but it’s human nature isn’t it? We are the most adaptable species on the planet. We have solutions, and we need to try them out.
I feel that climate change denial is no longer an option in arguments, after this event. This is a huge step forward.
Let’s assume Trump does not get re-elected. I was looking for a pertinent very recent quote which was something like “If we (GOP) don’t pass legislation about climate change, then it will be the Democrats’ laws that are passed.” I could not find it at the moment, but the closest I could find was this Forbes piece on how the GOP must be moved, and will move on the topic.
My point is that a crack in wall has appeared with this Trump-based report, and there are other factors moving even the GOP at large to action.
If we're thinking of the same thing iirc it was the stress related to thinking about basic needs, like food, shelter, protection that keeps your brain constantly occupied to the point of taking away resources form all other functions. Again iirc it was a study measuring the IQ of farmers in India from year to year against changes in the harvest, where one year could lead to relative wealth and the next the opposite. Being poor isn't the reason rather the lack of physical/mental security.
Also the super rich think they are immune to everything.