If someone knows how to unflag this, I'd appreciate it. I think this is a fair climate discussion and I'm happy to weigh in. Also, Eliot Jacobson is an active figure in climate science, so it's not just some rando's blog post.
I have said this thousands of times. Now in a different way. Collectively, people born in rich countries between 1930 and 1980 could have done something.
When the oil crisis hit in the early 70s, governments could have decided it was time to get out of fossil fuels. I was there on the cusp of adulthood. There was lots of talk, but the extreme rich and the oil barons started a huge propaganda campaign. People in gov. at the time were not stupid, they saw through it. But instead wanted to keep their jobs and the status quo. So here we are.
What could we have done ? Instead of crying about gas prices in the 70s, people could have started using other forms of transportation and kept at it. Back then public transportation worked fine in many places and bicycling was booming. Also many people lived relatively close to their work place. Instead we cried and cried about gas prices and continued to drive 2 or 3 or 5 miles to our work place daily. Same goes for shopping. Most shops were also rather close to were people lived.
So here we are, handing our grandchildren a life probably worse than what people experienced in the late 1800s to early 1900s. This way we avoided a bit of inconvenience in our life style.
I don’t disagree with the sentiment or any of the data.
But what actionable steps can an individual take that will actually affect the “it’ll be worse tomorrow” outcome?
I feel like there’s more resources put towards marketing that there’s a problem rather than coming up with practical steps people can do. And not picking on vegans but “turning vegan” isn’t really an acceptable answer for a industrial society.
Installing solar panels is something that I view as actionable by almost anyone. Battery is a bit out of reach. There’s questions to be asked about how sustainable that all is but in terms of getting people onboard, lower outgoings is a mighty big pull compared to endless impending doom articles.
In the US, the midterm elections are absolutely, 100% your chance to show what you care about.
Write and call your local leadership. You cannot do much as an individual. But if you convince your local leadership (city, county, state, etc.) to consider nuclear, geothermal, solar, and wind where possible, you can be part of an enormous tidal wave of good.
edit: If you're hoping for a "what can I do TODAY" type of thing, write or call. They hardly ever get anything but emails and internet comments. Hell, go downtown for a visit. This is one of the best ways for a politician to know what their constituents care about. If people start showing up to your door with the same complaint, you'll fix it knowing it'll make happy all of those highly enthusiastic people (probably enthusiastic enough to vote in my reelection campaign!), things move much faster.
As a father of two small children I feel heartbroken. Will we die together in a heatwave in a few years? Do I flee north now? How should we (can we?) prepare (them) for what is coming. Can the next generation have something close to a "normal" live?
I think the best initial effort is to get the corrupt politicians (for example, Gavin Newson received a record $16,700,000 from utility lobbyists this year) to tear down the utility monopolies/duopolies, to make power, and therefore cooling, more stable/cheap.
Whoever wants to go to work on combatting El Niño this year, I'm getting the gang together here on Wednesday: https://luma.com/tu0uvbx1
The timing is still being finalized but we should have climate scientist Zeke Hausfather there to give his take, and then we can talk about actions to avoid the worst impacts of El Niño this cycle, what innovators can build etc. I heard one idea of building modular battery powered Starlink systems that activate when the cell system gets knocked out.
But yeah, if nothing changes El Niño this year will likely be fucked.
I don't quite know why, and I don't think it's particularly your fault - but I find this a very depressing response to the information laid out in this article.
Given that, throughout history, a handful of volcanic eruptions have triggered periods of global cooling, will global warming become a non-issue if a particularly large volcano happens to erupt in the next few years?
I think it could solve all of our problems so that we are never inconvenienced by having to do anything. To promote the success of sitting around waiting for a volcano to save us while our portfolios appreciate, I've started a Wiccan druid circle for attuning our spirits to the volcano god Pele.
This is why I always say my goal is "a stable climate and thriving human civilizations on Earth", because if your only criteria is a stable climate, well, then a nice big asteroid takes care of that for you.
A volcanic eruption by itself can trigger some cooling by reflecting a bunch of sunlight off the dust/gas that's in the volcano emissions. Those cooling periods last a couple years.
In terms of having a longer cooling period with volcanoes, what happened historically was you had several volcanic eruptions in a row that caused something else to happen entirely -- sea ice restoration which caused a feedback loop. Generally, more sea ice begets more sea ice (Effectively, you're trading black ocean surface that absorbs light/heat for white ice that reflects light/heat. And so you get this feedback loop, more ice, cooler temps, even more ice) Anyway, The More You Know Star about some climate history stuff. (One issue with global warming is we're nearing the opposite end of that feedback loop, where less sea ice begets less sea ice and everything melts super fast. For shorthand, you can say that the temperature of Earth is likely rising as slowly as it will during the rest of our lifetimes. The ice is melting as slowly as it will for the rest of our lifetime. The sea level is rising as slowly as it will for the rest of our lifetime. etc)
The other thing to point out here is that volcanic emissions just mask warming caused by greenhouse gasses (ignoring the ability to start feedback loops). At the extreme end, for example, human IQ starts to suffer around 1,000 parts per million of carbon dioxide, so no matter what the temperature is in that scenario it's likely a decent idea to deal with carbon dioxide.
Volcanic winters only last a few years. The largest ones are estimated to only have a few degrees effect on global temperatures, so we could temporarily be in 1980s climate before returning after 3-5 years to an even hotter one than ever.
The climb would probably accelerated by the inevitable policy reversals by climate change deniers who would take hold of the temporary rapid reversal of global warming to burn as much fossil fuels while they have the chance
me! (Not sure why people are downvoting. This is a very predictable response. And in fact, the median response on Earth currently, based on what we've done and are doing to the climate) (and then everyone clapped and replied "me" to this thread and then a rainbow appeared)
If someone knows how to unflag this, I'd appreciate it. I think this is a fair climate discussion and I'm happy to weigh in. Also, Eliot Jacobson is an active figure in climate science, so it's not just some rando's blog post.
There is no unflag button I'm aware of.
As for the merits of the article and author I'm not so sure, but I like to disagree widely.
I agree, it was very clear in what it was saying.
I have said this thousands of times. Now in a different way. Collectively, people born in rich countries between 1930 and 1980 could have done something.
When the oil crisis hit in the early 70s, governments could have decided it was time to get out of fossil fuels. I was there on the cusp of adulthood. There was lots of talk, but the extreme rich and the oil barons started a huge propaganda campaign. People in gov. at the time were not stupid, they saw through it. But instead wanted to keep their jobs and the status quo. So here we are.
What could we have done ? Instead of crying about gas prices in the 70s, people could have started using other forms of transportation and kept at it. Back then public transportation worked fine in many places and bicycling was booming. Also many people lived relatively close to their work place. Instead we cried and cried about gas prices and continued to drive 2 or 3 or 5 miles to our work place daily. Same goes for shopping. Most shops were also rather close to were people lived.
So here we are, handing our grandchildren a life probably worse than what people experienced in the late 1800s to early 1900s. This way we avoided a bit of inconvenience in our life style.
Hope we are all happy as we age out.
I don’t disagree with the sentiment or any of the data.
But what actionable steps can an individual take that will actually affect the “it’ll be worse tomorrow” outcome?
I feel like there’s more resources put towards marketing that there’s a problem rather than coming up with practical steps people can do. And not picking on vegans but “turning vegan” isn’t really an acceptable answer for a industrial society.
Installing solar panels is something that I view as actionable by almost anyone. Battery is a bit out of reach. There’s questions to be asked about how sustainable that all is but in terms of getting people onboard, lower outgoings is a mighty big pull compared to endless impending doom articles.
In the US, the midterm elections are absolutely, 100% your chance to show what you care about.
Write and call your local leadership. You cannot do much as an individual. But if you convince your local leadership (city, county, state, etc.) to consider nuclear, geothermal, solar, and wind where possible, you can be part of an enormous tidal wave of good.
edit: If you're hoping for a "what can I do TODAY" type of thing, write or call. They hardly ever get anything but emails and internet comments. Hell, go downtown for a visit. This is one of the best ways for a politician to know what their constituents care about. If people start showing up to your door with the same complaint, you'll fix it knowing it'll make happy all of those highly enthusiastic people (probably enthusiastic enough to vote in my reelection campaign!), things move much faster.
I'm curious about this too. This upcoming El Niño, the cost impact is expected to be 4x the worst El Nino humanity has ever seen...
I'm putting together an event next Wednesday, We should have climate scientist Zeke Hausfather there to weigh in: https://luma.com/tu0uvbx1
As a father of two small children I feel heartbroken. Will we die together in a heatwave in a few years? Do I flee north now? How should we (can we?) prepare (them) for what is coming. Can the next generation have something close to a "normal" live?
I think the best initial effort is to get the corrupt politicians (for example, Gavin Newson received a record $16,700,000 from utility lobbyists this year) to tear down the utility monopolies/duopolies, to make power, and therefore cooling, more stable/cheap.
It appears you're being downvoted, but I think this is an extremely normal reaction. See my post above, come ask your questions on Wednesday!
Whoever wants to go to work on combatting El Niño this year, I'm getting the gang together here on Wednesday: https://luma.com/tu0uvbx1
The timing is still being finalized but we should have climate scientist Zeke Hausfather there to give his take, and then we can talk about actions to avoid the worst impacts of El Niño this cycle, what innovators can build etc. I heard one idea of building modular battery powered Starlink systems that activate when the cell system gets knocked out.
But yeah, if nothing changes El Niño this year will likely be fucked.
I don't quite know why, and I don't think it's particularly your fault - but I find this a very depressing response to the information laid out in this article.
Happy to hear more. Perhaps some room for reflection by you and me and the rest of everybody reading this.
Given that, throughout history, a handful of volcanic eruptions have triggered periods of global cooling, will global warming become a non-issue if a particularly large volcano happens to erupt in the next few years?
I think it could solve all of our problems so that we are never inconvenienced by having to do anything. To promote the success of sitting around waiting for a volcano to save us while our portfolios appreciate, I've started a Wiccan druid circle for attuning our spirits to the volcano god Pele.
This is why I always say my goal is "a stable climate and thriving human civilizations on Earth", because if your only criteria is a stable climate, well, then a nice big asteroid takes care of that for you.
A volcanic eruption by itself can trigger some cooling by reflecting a bunch of sunlight off the dust/gas that's in the volcano emissions. Those cooling periods last a couple years.
In terms of having a longer cooling period with volcanoes, what happened historically was you had several volcanic eruptions in a row that caused something else to happen entirely -- sea ice restoration which caused a feedback loop. Generally, more sea ice begets more sea ice (Effectively, you're trading black ocean surface that absorbs light/heat for white ice that reflects light/heat. And so you get this feedback loop, more ice, cooler temps, even more ice) Anyway, The More You Know Star about some climate history stuff. (One issue with global warming is we're nearing the opposite end of that feedback loop, where less sea ice begets less sea ice and everything melts super fast. For shorthand, you can say that the temperature of Earth is likely rising as slowly as it will during the rest of our lifetimes. The ice is melting as slowly as it will for the rest of our lifetime. The sea level is rising as slowly as it will for the rest of our lifetime. etc)
The other thing to point out here is that volcanic emissions just mask warming caused by greenhouse gasses (ignoring the ability to start feedback loops). At the extreme end, for example, human IQ starts to suffer around 1,000 parts per million of carbon dioxide, so no matter what the temperature is in that scenario it's likely a decent idea to deal with carbon dioxide.
Not meaningfully.
Volcanic winters only last a few years. The largest ones are estimated to only have a few degrees effect on global temperatures, so we could temporarily be in 1980s climate before returning after 3-5 years to an even hotter one than ever.
The climb would probably accelerated by the inevitable policy reversals by climate change deniers who would take hold of the temporary rapid reversal of global warming to burn as much fossil fuels while they have the chance
Who's more fucked the earth or us in particular? And who is doing the fucking then? I'd like some answers to these serious questions.
1. Us 2. Us
Whole lotta fucking going on in that post but who gives a f**?
me! (Not sure why people are downvoting. This is a very predictable response. And in fact, the median response on Earth currently, based on what we've done and are doing to the climate) (and then everyone clapped and replied "me" to this thread and then a rainbow appeared)