IPCC | Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis 32

[cmoreride]

Climate change is widespread and intensifying
says the latest IPCC report.
It underscores the urgency of strong,
sustained cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

 

[1503-44]

Water vapor is not a problem as any localized excesses are dispursed and equilibrium achieved in a short time. The oceans are exchanging megatons/billisecond. Man is not likely to interfere substantially more than raising the heat of the oceans by the CO2 effect, which is more than enough interference right there.

I view CC as a temporary measure in most cases, but it may be forever needed for cement production and other processes that cannot be brought down to zero.

 

Cement production (or at least concrete) will take care of itself, because the world is rapidly running out of useful sand.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[1503-44]

I know.
Pretty much true of almost everything useful.

 

[AutisticBez]

To be honest, covid is having a much larger impact on reducing carbon emissions then all forms of renewable energy combined. By the time this virus is finished, everyone will have forgotten about climate.

 

[1503-44]

Both problems are here to stay.
One has given us some breathing room, the other has taken some away.

The airlines and cruise operators are chomping at the bit.

 

[moltenmetal]

I was feeling quite hopeful that we as a species were finally getting truly serious about addressing this unbelievably important problem, which is demonstrated clearly to be based only in measured facts and the most basic physics.

Then I came back to the engineering site that I've participated in for over 15 yrs, and I read this discussion.

The reality is sad, and simple. The young people are going to need to wait for a huge number of influential people from previous generations to die off before they can actually get going on real solutions to the AGW risk. No amount of evidence will satisfy them sufficiently to change their mindset. They're just stuck. They think the choice is between taking AGW seriously and starving and freezing in the dark, or pretending AGW is either not real or not worth mitigating, and continuing to thrive as a species.

That makes me very concerned my for my kids, and theirs.

How engineers who participate routinely in HAZOP reviews and hence seem to understand risk mitigation in engineering decision-making, can fail to understand AGW risk mitigation in that light, is totally beyond me. And yet this little "survey" of the attitudes of commenters on Eng-Tips makes it clear that this problem is rather commonplace among engineers of a certain age. And the younger ones who feel differently- where are their voices? Not on Eng-Tips, sadly.

 

[1503-44]

And engineers are the ones supposedly in the best position to lead on this. If we all do not believe the science, who will. The witchcraft climate change protector practitioners will be about soon.

Don't get too discouraged. We are not all living in the Jurasic Park Retirement Home, even though it does seem to have the highest audience participation.

 

1503-44,
You don't help yourself with commentary like that.

And on the contrary I would posit that engineers are singularly NOT positioned to solve the climate crisis, because they are so conditioned to think only of technical solutions. Why not? Because there are no adequate technical solutions. Firstly because we are too far gone to think that mitigations will stop this train heading off a cliff, but more significantly, because this crisis is now primarily a moral and spiritual one.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[GregLocock]

China and India.

Solve that

Anything else=hot air

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[1503-44]

Helping myself?

USA & China.
India < 20% their levels.

 

[rb1957]

Indian emissions (sorry, that sounds bad) may be <20% of US, but they'll increase as India becomes increasingly industralised. Roughly 1/7 of the world's population are Indian, eventually (of course not now) there's little reason to think that they won't produce 1/7 of the world's emissions.

And the key to India is (like China) that they are creating these industries now, and are well placed to learn our lessons and develop along a different line (that takes CO2 emissions into account).

earlier you posted "If we all do not believe the science, who will.". IMHO, no one "believes" science.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

The witchcraft climate change protector practitioners will be about soon.

Read your post out loud.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[DrZoidberWoop]

Don't worry moltenmetal, anyone with a graduate degree can see the blatant corruption in all fields of climate science. There are plenty of us under-30 engineers who don't buy into the alarmist climate junk science.

 

[RVAmeche]

There are plenty of us under-30 engineers who don't buy into the alarmist climate junk science

There are also plenty of under-30 engineers who do recognize science. Considering the effects we're already starting to see around the world, its disheartening to try to imagine what disaster would "convince" people who don't believe the science. Even Fox News is already shifting their narrative from "its not happening" to "listen...you don't bankrupt the economy to resolve it. you just...learn to deal with it". That's almost a verbatim quote.

 

[1503-44]

Dr Who,
I dont buy into the alarmist aspect of it either.
That's just to get the attention of the clueless that haven't seen it for themselves.
It doesn't matter what you believe. Toss your iPhone before you get hit by a bus.

Word of warning. If you're under 30, climate change may not be the worst of it for you, but i'm only worrying about it because you don't.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

There is a lot of GOOD science to support global warming. But, there is a difference between that good science and the "junk science" that says things like, "wild fires caused by global warming", "hurricane activity caused by global warming", "decline in polar bear populations caused by global warming", "glacier melting caused by global warming"..... et cetera.

Even the climate models that predict x, y, and z will happen by 2030 or 2050 or whenever could be called "junk science". I honestly don't believe them to be junk science. But, I also take them to be little better than educated guesses. Those are highly speculative and are really difficult to get even close to correct when you have an incredibly complex multi-variable system like the earths climate.

To be fair, the "junk science" I've referred to above is usually bad reporting of actual scientific studies by journalists who are not scientifically literate to report better. It's also often done by for political manipulation of such studies.

 

[1503-44]

Josh, what the heck do you think climate change IS going to look like?

What exactly do you need to see to believe.

 

My two eyeballs are not 'junk science'.


"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[JoshPlumSE]

What exactly do you need to see to believe.

To believe what?
That Global Warming is happening? I believe that already.
That Global Warming is mostly caused by our own actions and needs to be taken seriously? I believe that already.
That Global Warming might cause some extremely unpleasant consequences within my children's lifetimes? I believe that already.
That we need to take action now? I believe that already. I have preferences over what sorts of actions to take so that we don't destroy our economy at the same time.

What I don't believe is that we should literally kill people to reduce the human population and save the earth.

What I don't believe is that we should ignore nuclear energy in favor of unproven and unscalable technologies.

What I don't believe is that Global Warming is irreversible (just like the Ozone hole wasn't irreversible).

What I don't believe is that EVERYTHING that happens today can be primarily attributed to climate change. California has had droughts and fires throughout it's history. Blaming global warming for poor forest and water management is ridiculous. Hurricanes have always happened and will continue to happen. Is global warming to blame for any single one of them? Not really.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

My two eyeballs are not 'junk science'.

Exactly, what you see outside isn't science at all. You could be the worlds more foremost collector of data related to the weather and climate of the western united states. That's not science either. It's just data.

I read a MMQB article years ago (when Peter King was still writing it) and he said something along the lines of, "Gosh with the weather we've had here over the last couple of weeks, I don't understand how anyone can doubt global warming". That was one of the most idiotic things he has EVER written. That's like someone else saying, "Gosh, it's been really cold this winter, I don't understand how anyone can believe in that global warming crap."

The point is that Global Warming is GLOBAL and happens over a long enough time period (even if it's only 50 years) that no individual can accurately observe it. It's only through the collection and processing of GLOBAL data over time that you can really see the evidence. As this evidence comes in, you can use science to make better sense out of the data and what it means. You can theorize about what will happen in the future, but until your theories are proven to be reasonably accurate you cannot say with any certainty what exactly will happen in the future.... except in very broad generalizations.