Latest IPCC Climate Change Report 14

[dik]

Available here:

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM_final.pdf

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[DrZoidberWoop]

Environmentalists are so full of "it" and would cut off the nose to spite the face. Abandon fossil fuels? For the USA at least, good luck building the required nuclear facilities to become energy independent (already failed), consolidating the population centers so proper mass transit systems can be implemented (not going to happen), somehow create an electric vehicle that the swathes of average earning people can afford after abandoning their gas burning car.

 

[LionelHutz]

So, any of these reports spell out the practical ways we can convert to a non-carbon economy?

How about an explanation on how the world can continue to use carbon fuel and still be net carbon neutral?

 

Environmentalists are so full of "it" and would cut off the nose to spite the face.

Care to tell us what "it" is?

Also I have not noticed any noseless environmentalists walking around lately.



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

 

[dik]

They don't have to have a solution to point out a problem. It depends on how others address the matter on where we go from here. It may already be too late.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik

 

[LionelHutz]

Let me re-word the question to avoid any possible deflection....

Are there any reports or documents that spell out an achievable, practical way we can convert the world to a non-carbon economy by 2050, with the conversion well underway by 2030?

 

[dik]

I'm not aware of any, and I don't see things improving in a significant manner.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik

 

[GregLocock]

As I demonstrated in the challenge thread, it is sort of do-able technology wise, but requires a great deal of mining and money. A friend of mine in the power industry in the UK pointed out that at current gas prices the 'zero battery cost' solution would actually be cost effective over 8 years, at $8B ... but first somebody has to stop whingeing and invent a zero cost battery. Neither of those will happen.

That doesn't solve air travel, third world countries etc etc. Plot expected CO2 emissions out to 2070. Now eliminate all first world countries from the graph. How many years have you delayed reaching whatever magic ppm makes you sad?


Cheers

Greg Locock


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

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[LionelHutz]

Around here, some Ford EV deliveries are 5 years out already. I doubt that will improve over the next few years. An EV switch needed to seriously start about 10-15 years ago to have a hope of mostly implementing it by 2030.

 

[enginesrus]

Has it ever entered the mind, that possibly in antiquity, or rather beginning times that there was a pretty constant, world wide warm temperature conducive to planet wide life. In other words no one really knows what is normal or not as far as climate and temperature on this planet. Co2 neutral? All fuels found on this planet are just that (Co2 Neutral), no other fuels have come from another planet. The believers in "fossil" fuel should understand this the most. The planet earth is a closed system nothing is created or destroyed.

 

[TugboatEng]

I can understand the logic used by the AGW crowd to explain that CO2 is being brought from deep below the surface of the earth and being released in to the atmosphere at a higher rate than it is being re-incorporated. This will shift the balance of things.

What frustrates me about the AGW crowd is the lack of real numbers. We know how much CO2 humans are releasing in to the atmosphere (every barrel of oil has a predictable amount and every barrel is documented). We have approximate models of the mass of the atmosphere. Why can't we produce some simple worst case scenarios using CO2 in and not including photosynthesis out. Numbers to give perspective? How would CO2 trend based solely on our fossil fuel combustion.

 

Are numbers the only thing that give you perspective? Maybe start counting the number of climate wars, because that will be the primary cause from here on.
And who are the 'AGW crowd'? I'm concerned I might be one of them.

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

 

[TugboatEng]

Help me with my math.

We make 35 billion tons of CO2 per year by FF combustion.

The Earth's atmosphere is 5.5 quadrillion tons.

CO2 SG vs air is 1.5.

Without getting in to ideal gas laws, let's say that we're adding ~64ppm CO2 per year without any removal process.

What is the environmental sink?

Yes, "climate wars" is an example of a weasel word.

Yeesh, I used AGW because it's a less inflammatory description...

 

[GregLocock]

Basically a long time ago we had about 7000 ppm of CO2 then a lot of plants grew the CO2 dropped. then they got flooded or sank and got taken out of the carbon cycle, and turned into FF.

So if we burn all the FF we'd get back to 7000.

if you add up all the CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuels since 1880, it is about twice as much as the change in CO2 in the atmosphere. According to the DOE we've emitted 389 E12 kg of C. In that time the ppm of CO2 has increased from 280 to 400 and the mass of the atmosphere is 5.1480E18. The mean molecular mass of the atmosphere is 29 and CO2 is 44 obviously. So the mass of CO2 in the atmosphere has gone from 280E-6*44/29*5.1E18=2.2E15 kg to 400E-6*44/29*5.1E18=3.1E15 kg

And from the above we've created 389E12*44/12=1.4 E15 kg, of which 0.9E15 is still in the atmosphere



Cheers

Greg Locock


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

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

 

[dik]

The CO₂ level has been higher that it currently is, but it has not been this his since humans have been in existance. This is going back 2 to 4 million years ago. I don't think the outcome has been determined yet.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik

 

If I were a hunter-gatherer on the plains of Africa 2M years ago I could probably tolerate a lot of climate change and rising oceans.
Irrelevant to the current emergency.

Climate wars are a thing; Syria is considered to be the first. The US military brain trust certainly takes climate conflict very seriously, as they do global heating. Do try to keep up.

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

 

[TugboatEng]

The Syrian civil war had other causes.

This claim has not gone unchallenged. In a rebuttal to this theory published in The Guardian, social scientists Jan Selby and Mike Hulme attribute Syria’s rural-urban migration to President Bashar al-Assad’s economic liberalization policies which scrapped agricultural fuel subsidies, plunging farmers into massive debt. Selby and Hulme also question the assertion that migrants were targeted as causing social stress. They fear that drawing causal links between climate change and conflict become “rhetorical moves to appeal to security interests or achieve sensational headlines,” ultimately doing disservice to both issues.

https://daily.jstor.org/climate-change-and-syrias-civil-war/

 

[LionelHutz]

Well, I've read through 150 some odd replies and nothing has stood out very much. I think the lingering question that needs answering is something along the lines of this. What is the most effective way to spend many, many trillion dollars to have an improved planet in the next 50 to 100 years? "Improve the planet" is rather subjective, but overall lets assume this means things like prosperity, better health and protecting biodiversity.

So many people see the calls to spend this much money and they just can't get behind it when they see so many other things they think that kind of money could be better spent on. For examples, will stopping CO2 emissions save endangered species or stop the widespread pollution of the planet or stop the over-fishing of the oceans or protect against a possible future planet wide catastrophe (think Covid here but worse)?

Covid has caused the "follow the science" BS excuse to get so over-used that I'm completely sick of hearing that. Science tells us the planet is getting warmer and what might happen because of that. That science isn't the sole answer to the best way forward. The science is saying the planet will get hotter and therefore the solution is to stop the planet from getting hotter. But, that's not all there is to it. If I strictly "followed the science" then a bunch of the human population should simply be eliminated. Thee are so many other factors to consider and these answers don't come from science. Some are For example, how many people having to move due to environmental changes is acceptable? How big should peoples dwellings be in the future? Are limits on human reproduction necessary?

Here's a practical, but simple example. The science is saying that as the world warms there will be heavier rains and longer droughts. Obviously, this would have negative consequences for growing crops. The question this should be causing is this - Should we spend $10 trillion to stop the warming or $10 trillion to better protect the crop land from flooding during the heavy rains and to store the rains for later use?

 

[dik]

Scientists are revolting...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...climate-protests-after-ipcc-report-180979913/

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik

 

[dik]

There was another interesting article, the type that makes the problem seem much less than I think it is:

https://www.ecomatcher.com/why-we-cant-afford-to-ignore-positive-tipping-points-in-climate-action/

They talk about positive tipping points, and how these can be used to 'fix the problem'. They use the UK and Norway as examples. The UK cutting back on coal fired power plants and Norway actively going EV. What they fail to recognise is that the UK has 1/2 of the US per capita carbon output and 1/5 of the US population. Norway has 1/3 of the per capita carbon output and only 5.2M people. Just a tiny drop in the bucket and nothing to write home about. This is nothing to rejoice about. The problem with this type of article is that it makes the problem seem easily solvable.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik

 

[MartinLe]

This is a suggestion for a political/economical framework to tackle climate change - I would call it ambitious social democracy :

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021...treated-climate-change-as-an-actual-emergency

Challenge to anyone who thinks this is to radical/goes to far: How else could a decarbonization be reached in decent timeframe?
For example, the first step - nationalization of fossile fuel industry might seem harsh. But decarbonization essentially means expropriating the fossile fuel sector: How much is an oil well worth (grossly oversimplified)? Material as scrap metal + the oil this well can exploit over its remaining lifetime. Any decision to leave it in the ground is (from the perspective of the wells owner) an expropriation. So starting with nationalizing/expropriating these firms is a logical first step.
And so on.

I have my own criticisms:
* I believe the MMT (modern monetary theory) is fundamentally incorrect, the state can't just print money without inflation (certainly not if this state is in anyway integrated into the world economy
* Jason Hickel doesnt spell out in how many places at once this would have to happen - Eventually worldwide, for a start I presume several of the big global eonomies at once (2 or 3 out of India, US, EU, China?)?