Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[Grey Fox]

Washington State will be joining the Quebec-California carbon market after yesterday's ballot measure pass*.

*or failed, not sure on how the measure was worded.

[crazy canuck]

Washington State will be joining the Quebec-California carbon market after yesterday's ballot measure pass*.

*or failed, not sure on how the measure was worded.

The initiative to take Washington State out of the carbon market failed 

[Josquius]

I'm guessing last night's results are not good news. I don't think Europe alone can figure this shit out.

We have to hope our new Chinese overlords have a plan.

I mean Europe and the US together are about 20% of global emissions - China's almost 30%.

We matter historically, some of the R&D will happen here and obviously we need to address our own emissions. But in terms of what's going to happen next with emissions and what the future looks like we don't matter a twopenny bit - we are bit players, not the main characters. The agents of this bit of history are China (and signs that emissions have peaked) and India (and whether their growth will have a carbon profile like China's, in which case we're all fucked, or can be don cleanly).

Worth remembering though a large chunk of china's emissions are the wests outsourced manufacturing.
It ultimately does come down to us to some extent.

Incidentally I'm increasingly hoping on Chinese solar. Heard a good point that china dominating this market isn't anything like the big deal dominating oil and gas markets is - that requires a continuous flow, it's a subscription.
Solar panels meanwhile if things go bad with China then they don't suddenly dissappear.
The argument I heard was letting China dominate here was fine, this frees up our efforts for more valuable manufacturing.

It is a wonder on India though. They are much less keen on Chinese trade. And with the general brain worm vibes...

[Sheilbh]

Worth remembering though a large chunk of china's emissions are the wests outsourced manufacturing.
It ultimately does come down to us to some extent.

I think that was the case - increasingly it's less the case. I think China's actually becoming the manufacturer for the world, in order to move up the supply chain (vehicles, phones, trains next) and also lock in domestic-sourced production rather than just being the more disposable end of Western consumer chains (though that still exists).

Incidentally I'm increasingly hoping on Chinese solar. Heard a good point that china dominating this market isn't anything like the big deal dominating oil and gas markets is - that requires a continuous flow, it's a subscription.
Solar panels meanwhile if things go bad worth China then they don't suddenly dissappear.
The argument I heard was letting China dominate here was fine, this frees up our efforts for more valuable manufacturing.

The installation and roll out of renewables in China and the energy transition in China underway is, I think, possibly the biggest and least reported story of this decade. It's vast and it's key in global energy transition - it's not just a Chinese story.

[Josquius]

A respectable specialist on the topic using data to make the same point I've made in the past that the big issue these days isn't climate change denial, rather claims that climate change is fine, stopping it is impossible anyway so who cares, and so on.

[crazy canuck]

Not only will this year be the warmest ever, we crossed over 1.5 degrees of warming.

[Syt]

And remember that even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, it would take years to take effect, because of the time delay built into these processes.

I.e. more reason for naysayers to argue, "Well we did all the things, and IT'S NOT GETTING BETTER!!!!1111 Let's burn all the wood/coal/peat/oil!"

[crazy canuck]

The thing is that the models were off.  We went over 1.5 more quickly than anticipated.  I am concerned that we are too late.  And I am not too sure what should be done about it now.

[Grey Fox]

The thing is that the models were off.  We went over 1.5 more quickly than anticipated.  I am concerned that we are too late.  And I am not too sure what should be done about it now.

If we are too late, what we need to start doing is adapt.

[Josquius]

It's never too late. 3 is worse than 2.5 is worse than 2 is worse than 1.5

And roll on the solar shield.  Bring back snow.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Make glaciers great again 

[Richard Hakluyt]

It's never too late. 3 is worse than 2.5 is worse than 2 is worse than 1.5

And roll on the solar shield.  Bring back snow.

Yes, think of CO2 emission reduction as part of the necessary adaptations.

If we look at the past few hundred million years CO2 concentrations were often very high, as high as 10,000ppm and global temperature was perhaps 10c higher. There have also been CO2 busts leading to glaciation periods. The biosphere is resilient and tends to self-correct over time...though there are massive challenges to life during the changes...and over time can mean like in 30m years.

The problem is that humanity has constructed its agriculture, infrastructure and living places on what is  basically a climatic snapshot. I'm confident that if we fail to grasp the nettle the Earth's biosphere will repair itself in a few million years, but humanity may not survive the next few hundred years.

So I think we should be more selfish in our approach to climate change and think about it as a economic problem. If we don't do anything then all our cities and people are in the wrong places, they will have to move and they will be moving into an impoverished biome. This will be destructive and unfeasibly expensive. So we have to reduce CO2 and make many adaptations despite the upfront costs, the alternative is civilisational collapse.

[Syt]

Well, I think humanity would still survive, but either adapted, or much reduced in numbers, not least because there's likely to be violence over available resources at some breaking point - I assume it will make current migrations look like casual hikes by comparison. Best way to bring down migration is make sure people are happy where they are. Stable government and economies are part of that, but very much underpinned by having habitable environments.

[Josquius]

Well, I think humanity would still survive, but either adapted, or much reduced in numbers, not least because there's likely to be violence over available resources at some breaking point - I assume it will make current migrations look like casual hikes by comparison. Best way to bring down migration is make sure people are happy where they are. Stable government and economies are part of that, but very much underpinned by having habitable environments.

Yeah, the issue in terms of survival I'd say isn't so much the climate change itself but the violence related to it. Not even just directly with climate refugees et al, but more indirectly with late stage capitalism (which ultimately is what gave us climate change) leading to support for bad people (tm) who might be more inclined towards shit like Russia in Ukraine.

Its all related.

[crazy canuck]

The trend line toward unthinkable temperature increases by 2100 has not improved, despite all strides made in clean energy, says a new report.  The reason is simple.

Yet the world is still heading for significant warming because global energy demand is growing faster than clean energy is expanding, which means fossil fuel use has been rising to fill the gap.