 | Forum
Reply | Take that, climate doom-mongers
at 20:17 13 Mar 2024
Sulphur reduction in bunker fuel has been highlighted as a possible driver of higher temps by James Hansen and his colleagues and their methodology is in this paper:
https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889
You used the term "localised effect" which is what we have with ship tracks, when we look at global scales we find symmetries in albedo in both hemispheres. More on albedo in this paper:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2014RG000449
There is also evidence that cloud size and reflectivity are constrained, essentially if we brighten one area it is compensated with darker clouds elsewhere. It is found it this paper
https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/24/109/2024/acp-24-109-2024-discussion.html
This has implications for geoengineering techniques such as cirrus cloud dimming, marine cloud brightening and direct aerosol injection. Would any of this stuff make much of a difference at a global scale? The scientists that research these techniques are highly respected and fully aware of the dangers of these technologies, especially when coupled together.
Cloud feedbacks and planetary albedo are a nightmare and one of many things we don't fully understand, hence stop putting GHG's in the atmosphere so we don't have to contemplate speculative technologies. |
| Forum
Reply | I guess many of us here are familiar with Cairns and Far North Queensland.
at 14:14 17 Dec 2023
I echo what you have said about anybody who has relatives out in this area of Australia and hope the authorities have the resources to cope.
Andrew Kruczkiewicz and colleagues have studied riverine and flash flooding extensively, particularly in vulnerable areas such as refugee camps, and this could lead to better early warning systems in the future. Despite the improving science in this area the point you make about infrastructure is a real concern as we reach the limit of adaptation.
This reality that our infrastructure is under threat puts into context the idiotic assumption of William Nordhaus, repeated by Arendt and Tol in IPCC AR5 WG2, that 87% of the economy would be unaffected by climate change because it happens carefully controlled environments, indoors basically. Simon Sharpe used to go round and tell economics undergraduates how Nordhaus simply made up the data for his models and this crap won Nordhaus the top prize in economics. In a recent presentation by Simon Dietz, a climate economist at LSE, he stated that economists were no longer making up the data, but were using historical data to assess the economic damages of tipping points - what could possibly go wrong with that? Do these people know any physics at all?
Nordhaus recently won a prize at the Energy Intelligence Forum(Oil and Gas Conference), the very event Greta Thunberg was arrested for protesting. Nordhaus is often referenced by climate deniers such as Bjorn Lomborg, Ben Shapiro and Alex Epstein to downplay the risks of climate change. These people drive my colleagues and I nuts with this dangerous, hubristic nonsense, they are dwindling in numbers now so hopefully this rubbish will stop being legitimised by the IPCC and confined to economics journals that nobody reads.
Tol has his own Desmog page just to top it off.
https://www.desmog.com/richard-tol/ |
| Forum
Reply | UAE Hosting COP28, who could have predicted this.......
at 08:30 4 Dec 2023
Sounds like Al Jaber is referring to the environmental Kuznets curve, remind us which discipline dreamt up that nonsense.
Cop has a multitude of scientists presenting their findings on the state of the Earth system and gives a voice to some of the economically smaller nations,. There is at least some movement on loss and damage which if you couple that with the work on early warning systems could help to attenuate the worst effects. |
| Forum
Reply | UAE Hosting COP28, who could have predicted this.......
at 23:07 27 Nov 2023
The Labour Party thinks there is a technical fix and will support a green growth agenda that has zero empirical support. Who is advising the Labour Party?
I don't understand how you, thermodynamically, can parse out one group in an interacting complex system. The energy and material throughputs are all interrelated. I agree with general point about sustainability and energy from fossil fuels. |
| Forum
Reply | UAE Hosting COP28, who could have predicted this.......
at 22:31 27 Nov 2023
We have all suffered the anger and frustration you feel and I've been in climate workshops with people in tears. There is always that point when you ask, why does nobody get this? I have spent years fighting climate economists on their bullsh1t and even though we have very much won that fight, it continues as they dream up new nonsense to allow governments and businesses to obfuscate on change.
No need to thank me, I get paid to do this stuff, the people who use their own time to carefully craft the communication of climate science are doing a superb job. People don't read the IPCC reports or peer-reviewed literature, they speak to their family, friends, read socials. Keep doing what you're doing. The PEW study on climate opinions shows people are worried about climate change, we just need to access the right dynamics to make system change happen. |
| Forum
Reply | UAE Hosting COP28, who could have predicted this.......
at 11:15 27 Nov 2023
The Global Systems Institute at Exeter University has really embraced the idea of bottom up engagement and activism. Getting the community on board and engaged has become a primary focus. Business leaders, artists, playwrights, musicians, scientists, vloggers, YouTubers, have come up with myriad ways to communicate and give people agency in tackling climate change.
I differ from you in blaming a certain group of people for what is happening, we are all products of the fossil fuel system and human behaviour is poorly understood subject that academically seems to be in permanent crisis. One person on here inferred that if the middle classes bought less garden furniture we could avoid catastrophic climate change, another posted that the 1% are to blame, in physics terms, this is merely squeezing a balloon. Energy and matter is simply redistributed and the system size and trajectory remains problematic.
Really enjoy reading your comments and the journey you're on to understand this crisis, once people take the time to really understand the complexity of the problem they realise just how much sh1t we are in. Tim Lenton, who wrote the seminal paper on Earth system tipping points and was director of the Global Systems Institute, stated he didn't think civilisation would get beyond this century if we carry out as we are. |
| Forum
Reply | Oh well, might as well carry on as we are then.
at 22:01 23 Oct 2023
International, national, corporation, community, individual - there is inertia at all scales. Why did you pick individuals?
The idea that people will rise up or markets will align to people''s expectations is a fools errand. I think it shows the idiocy of left and right political thinking. Physics doesn't care about any of this, just the mass of oxidised carbon in the atmosphere which dictates the scientifically evidenced hard limits in the Earth system. We are past Hansen's guardrail, we are approaching the 1.5C guardrail and will sail past Schellnhuber's 2C by mid-century.
Katharine Hayhoe did some research on climate change opinions and found worldwide ~70% of people were worried about climate change, however, less than 30% feel it will affect them. Those guardrails will be long gone before people "wake up". We have non-scientists claiming ridiculous nonsense such as collapse is nearing - we have the resources and the adaptation skills to get us to 2C which is 20-30 years. The system will double in that time. This is a systemic issue not an individual one, and without change across scales we are doomed to fail. |
| Forum
Reply | Anybody else think the global economy is about to go pop?
at 12:30 5 Oct 2023
There is this prevailing sense from most people that the current system can't fail, that collapse is impossible - it is implicit in the IAM's that economists produce. You can whack the temperature above the level that any complex life could exist and capitalism carries on without us.
The fossil fuel bounty from the Carboniferous Period will be unable to sustain civilisation forever and so in the long term there doesn't seem any other option than what you suggest that meets the challenge of the climate and ecological crisis.
I do find it interesting that nobody can tell us what direction the global economy is heading. What direction will the global economy be heading in 2024? Some people have posited a few ideas that all seem rather ad-hoc, but after all these years of capitalism we still don't know how it works, or in your case, how to get rid of it. |
| Forum
Reply | It’s so weird
at 12:27 21 Sep 2023
I remember some chap who had just gain his PhD in economics presented this sort of behavioural economics as a solution to a room of scientists and engineers. It completely lacks the application of the scientific method, is detached from the physical systems of Earth and our civilisation, and as a field, economics is totally discredited in the climate realm (Nordhaus, Tol, etc.). In a field in which incivility is a hallmark, I'm not sure economists are the people to be winning hearts and minds.
I agree with your point about people being misled, but then you don't apply this systems thinking to the rest of your post. There isn't any science in your post, just lots of unsupported assumptions. Why will the system evolve this way? Is there any evidence to support this? Most analysts see energy consumption continuing to rise well into this century and so our ability to do useful work should head in what direction? What might act as a balancing feedback on this? Environmental economics sees the global economy being many times its current size by 2100 and with limited damages from climate change (~3%). Why is this complete BS?
It is rather discourteous to the millions of people who have made lifestyle changes and only seen an upwards trajectory of the Keeling curve. Why have these changes not made any difference? |
| Forum
Reply | Earth ‘well outside safe operating space for humanity’, scientists find
at 08:40 14 Sep 2023
Johan Rockström is involved with the Earth4All group which updated the Limits to Growth World 3 model that was published by MIT scientists in 1972. You're quite right to state that this has been known for years and you don't have to build complex system dynamics models to show this. There is so much evidence of the damage we are doing to the biosphere and I am yet to hear a convincing argument to reverse this trend.
Any ideas on how to reduce the impact on the biosphere without collapsing the system we rely on to live our lives? There are ideas that are very much in their infancy and most policymakers won't even engage with. It seems the pseudoscience that Sagan warned us about has taken hold in the areas where it matters, COP28 will certainly be interesting in December. |
| Forum
Reply | North Sea oil
at 17:27 3 Aug 2023
The classic Bjorn Lomborg nonsense that we can adapt our way out of the climate and ecological crisis. All of what NthQldITFC stated is in the IPCC AR6 synthesis report which happens to include a piece on mal-adaptation. The best way to help those in the Global South is rapid mitigation of GHG's due to the nonlinear impacts of rising temperatures.
I think it is clear you have a deep distrust of scientists and seem to want to believe the anti-science peddled by cranks and grifters. I usually find people who hold these views to be religiously pro-capitalist - you seem to be pointing out what a crap job it does of allocating resources. |
| Forum
Reply | Kropotkin and Tractordownsouth's 2023-24 prediction competition
at 11:03 31 Jul 2023
Leeds United
Ipswich Town
Middlesbrough
Leicester City
Watford
Southampton
West Bromwich Albion
Stoke City
Sunderland
Blackburn Rovers
Bristol City
Swansea City
Cardiff City
Coventry City
Millwall
Preston North End
Queens Park Rangers
Huddersfield Town
Norwich City
Hull City
Sheffield Wednesday
Plymouth Argyle
Birmingham City
Rotherham United |
| Forum
Reply | Is this the end game?
at 12:44 22 Jul 2023
Your first paragraph my be true in popular discourse as it is often discussed in a non-scientific way, however, to suggest it isn't a legitimate scientific endeavour is nonsense. Understanding qualitatively the possible cascading impacts on our civilisation was what a bunch of us in this field discussed recently with Luke Kemp, the lead author of the 'climate endgame' paper.
That fact the we don't understand these processes makes your claim that, "...there's a long way to go" unquantifiable. It is great to see people taking the time to attempt to understand these problems, but we need to be careful with the language. Humans lived long before civilisation and could survive after civilisation collapses, it seems uninhabitable and collapse get used interchangeably when they are different things.
A great point a fellow physicist said to me recently was, why are humans in such a rush to build a bigger and bigger system? Maybe we were predetermined to collapse, it could even be a reason why we have not discovered life anywhere else. All the talk of free will, COP's, IPCC, democracy, technology, and yet, nothing has even dented our desire to test those physical thresholds that could lead to the demise of our civilisation. To suggest we aren't trying is a complete nonsense, some of us have spent our entire working lives on this problem. It seems less is something our civilisation can't do until it becomes inevitable. |
| Forum
Reply | Keir Starmer is threatening to leave our crises unchanged…
at 23:56 18 Jul 2023
Degrowth would require a reduction in energy and material throughput in order to align the UK with it's Paris commitments and planetary boundaries. This would require a sacrifice from our citizens in terms of material standard of living.
I found the Labour Party, and this was true under Corbyn as well, is largely clueless on the climate and ecological crisis. It is spun as an opportunity to get richer and dismisses the points that scientists are trying to get across.
I would be interested to hear where you learnt about degrowth as what you are putting across doesn't sound like the research I've read and discussed at various seminars. |
| Forum
Reply | Has this sunk in with you yet?
at 08:21 27 Jun 2023
Humans have utilised fossil fuels at an exponential rate which in turn is destroying the biosphere they depend on - there is no balance e.g. EEI. The equitable limit was past at 1C of warming and the human niche will be eroded away to higher latitudes. If you can balance that in next fifty years, please write a paper. We have two options; collapse or slow down that could also lead to collapse. The carbon budget for 1.5C could be used up in less than a decade and six tipping points could be crossed. I know you're not making a case for BAU, and I agree that techno fixes and political ideology are flawed, it is the rate of change you asserted that requires some explanation. The question I have for you is; how do you balance energy and material throughput within planetary boundaries without collapsing the system (civilisation) given the thermodynamic constraints? |
| | CoachRob
|
Site Scores| Forum Votes: | 202 | | Comment Votes: | 0 | | Prediction League: | 44 | | TOTAL: | 246 |
|
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.