[RD] Daily Graphs and Charts

[Lexicus]

But that was such a radical variation around the mean that it was (AFAIK) more impactful than the current shift.

What the changing mean....means, is that such radical variations become considerably more likely.

 

[El_Machinae]

Not really. Mean is mean. To make a statement about such events, you need a statement about the new variance. i.e., is the variance fatter or slimmer as things shift to the new mean?

What the study will mostly show is that people's property is being changed by outside forces. I'd normally say 'without consent', but the majority of Americans implicitly consent to a high GHG world through their behavior

 

[Lexicus]

Not really.

Yes, really, because...

To make a statement about such events, you need a statement about the new variance. i.e., is the variance fatter or slimmer as things shift to the new mean?

..it's fatter.

 

[El_Machinae]

edit: meh, nevermind.

 

[Lexicus]

From the link hobbs posted originally on this:

Such research is simply another way of identifying the impacts of climate change. None of it should be a surprise. Researchers have repeatedly warned that the US climate is changing with ever-greater risks of climate extremes, including ever-more devastating droughts, and with increasing risks of forest fire.

Clicking on the drought link gives
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/arid-areas-us-face-prospect-megadroughts/

Arid areas of US face prospect of 'megadroughts'

The authors conclude: “Ultimately, the consistency of our results suggests an exceptionally high risk of a multidecadal megadrought occurring over the Central Plains and Southwest regions during the late 21st century, a level of aridity exceeding even the persistent megadroughts that characterised the Medieval era.”

 

[Silurian]

I disagree that the dust bowl wasn't worse. I don't see people moving to California by the hundreds of thousands just so they can eke out a living.

The farming population is less than 10% of what it was in the 1930s so you would not see hundreds of thousands of people moving in a short time.

 

[Lexicus]

https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...utm_term=sustainability_news_infographic_free

@Plotinus reason #47839241 for anti-natalism

 

[Samson]

I wonder what they mean by "Buy green energy"? It does not sound as drastic as those around it such as "Live car free" and "Eat a plant based diet".

 

[Lexicus]

I wonder what they mean by "Buy green energy"? It does not sound as drastic as those around it such as "Live car free" and "Eat a plant based diet".

They mean, I assume, getting more or all of your electricity from renewables.

 

[Samson]

They mean, I assume, getting more or all of your electricity from renewables.

I looked it up and it is what you can get from current suppliers, It also has this graph, that shows that in the UK we cannot make much saving.

The source material.
the supplementary material

Spoiler Description of Green energy :

To calculate the typical emissions saved by purchasing green power in the United States, we used the
average purchase size in MWh of a residential customer (6, 5, and 4 MWh depending on the market
type)(21). These values were entered into the EPA’s Green Power Equivalency Calculator (22) using the
national average emissions rate, with each outcome divided by the average number of members per
household (2.63) (15). Calculations are based on the assumption that each MWh of green energy
generates no GHG emissions.
For Australia we assumed the choice of 100% of household electricity coming from renewable sources,
which corresponds with 5.8 tCO2e saved (23). This was divided by the average household size in
Australia (2.6) (24) resulting in 2.2 tCO2e reduced per individual.
UK figures taken from a report by the National Consumer Council (25), where the maximum value of
100kg was divided by the average household size of 2.3 in the UK (17). Although this figure is from an
older report, the comparatively low estimate is in agreement with more recent findings which
problematize green power in the UK (20).
For Canada the average household uses 40GJ from electricity and 92GJ from natural gas (26). Based on a
GHG intensity of 0.049tCO2e/GJ (27) an average household produces 4.508 tCO2e from natural gas
usage. Based on an emissions intensity of 160gCO2e/KWh (28) and converting the 40GJ of electricity
into 11.11MWh of electricity, the average household would generate 1.778 tCO2e. As Canada has at
least one green energy provider operating in each province which offers green electricity and green
natural gas in a form that we judged to be reasonably transparent, reductions totalling 6.286 tCO2e per
household are achievable. Dividing by the average Canadian household occupancy of 2.5 (29) yields 2.5
tCO2e per person. A report by the Pembina Institute did not find causes for concern in the Canadian
green energy market (30), unlike research in the European context (20).

 

[stfoskey12]

From the link hobbs posted originally on this:
Clicking on the drought link gives
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/arid-areas-us-face-prospect-megadroughts/

I'm not denying it won't be bad in 70 or 80 years, I'm just saying it's currently less bad than the dust bowl was. I generally try to take all claims about future climatic changes in a smallish region like that with a grain of salt. Sure, it could be horrible. Or maybe not. We probably won't know for sure until it's too late to do anything about it.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...utm_term=sustainability_news_infographic_free

@Plotinus reason #47839241 for anti-natalism

Ehhh, I still want to be a dad some day.

 

[El_Machinae]

I'm an avowed immortalist, and the 'urge to parent' is an objection I commonly get. The world can easily handle everyone having one child. Okay, maybe not 'easily' because that would eventually double the population. But still, it's not a population explosion.

Before I make a mistake with my communication: it takes two people to create a child. So a baby counts as each of their 'one' allotment. One child per couple eventually leads to a doubling of the population if no one dies.

From the link hobbs posted originally on this:



Clicking on the drought link gives
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/arid-areas-us-face-prospect-megadroughts/

I tried to stop because I realized I had successfully pulled a bait-and-switch on word usage, without meaning to. You were talking about the mean rain averages in the rain shadow. I was talking about the statistical bell curve over the whole. The rain shadow is best looked like a shift in local effects, and the statistical average over the whole of oklahoma could very easily not capture that. And increasing variance in rainfall over the *whole* wouldn't be the right tool anyway. If rain is being concentrated in one region over another, that would bring down the variance in the averages in a reasonable number of the models anyway. Apologies.

 

[wolfigor]

I generally talk about 'per capita emissions', because I happen to think that apportioning the atmospheric budget in a per capita way is basically the fairest I can think of. And I start the timeline at "1992" (because that's when the Rio Conference was agreed to) or at least "1992" because that's when Kyoto was signed.

Everyone and their dog knows that we currently need to emit fossil carbon as part of the process of lifting our people out of poverty AND creating the alternatives. But this is for the "what about China???" people. The Chinese are consuming their share of the buffer vastly slowly than my countrymen are.

I do agree with you that this metric is the most fair, but probably not the most useful.
(data from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions)

For example China produces 10,641,789 KT of CO2, a mere 1% improvement in consumtpion efficiency would mean a reduction of 106,417 KT of CO2
If you do the same to USA, you will save half of it (roughly).
Pick other developed countries and the savings in CO2 will be negligible even if their CO2 production per capita is much higher than China.

A lot of EU countries have also improved immensely their energy efficiency and they are already hitting the law of diminishing returns, whicle in countries like China and even more India, it's easier to get large efficiency gains.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm not denying it won't be bad in 70 or 80 years, I'm just saying it's currently less bad than the dust bowl was. I generally try to take all claims about future climatic changes in a smallish region like that with a grain of salt. Sure, it could be horrible. Or maybe not. We probably won't know for sure until it's too late to do anything about it.

But saying it's "worse than the dust bowl" is comparing apples to oranges. The dust bowl was a singular extreme "weather" event; this is a longer-term shift that makes extreme events like the dust bowl more likely.

Ehhh, I still want to be a dad some day.

Good God, really? I don't. Of course, I don't even without all the climate-pocalypse stuff, so...

 

[El_Machinae]

A lot of EU countries have also improved immensely their energy efficiency and they are already hitting the law of diminishing returns, whicle in countries like China and even more India, it's easier to get large efficiency gains.

True. It's designed mostly to show how "they are not doing their share" is a false argument. It will be a long time (maybe even never) before the average Chinese person is as bad as the average Canadian. There are many different ways to frame the problem, I created that graph in order to help counter a spin in framing that allows people to do nothing "because the Chinese are the problem".

 

[Lexicus]

True. It's designed mostly to show how "they are not doing their share" is a false argument. It will be a long time (maybe even never) before the average Chinese person is as bad as the average Canadian. There are many different ways to frame the problem, I created that graph in order to help counter a spin in framing that allows people to do nothing "because the Chinese are the problem".

Ultimately we are going to need the Western governments to get in the game here. It's not going to be easy, it's not going to be painless, it's not going to be accomplished only with individual lifestyle changes.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I do think individual lifestyle changes will play a large part in stopping climate change; albeit they will be heavily underwritten by government initiative. Handing out subsidies so individuals can install solar panels and buy EV's and various other tax breaks and schemes will go a long way in getting people to help out on the individual level.

 

[Lexicus]

Handing out subsidies to people is literally the opposite of what I meant by individual lifestyle changes. Governments giving people money to spend on solar panels is a policy, not a lifestyle change.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I mean that was just what popped in my head. Is driving a cleaner car not a lifestyle change? (cash for clunkers, EV rebates) And installing solar panels does tend to make people adjust their electrical use patterns to take advantage of the times they are generating electricity rather than pulling from the grid.

 

[Lexicus]

Is driving a cleaner car not a lifestyle change?

I mean, in the literal sense of the words, it is, but if the government is spending money to subsidize or encourage people to change their lifestyles, that is not really what I meant by them.

The point is that massive government investment is going to be required. A bunch of people deciding individually to live greener isn't going to cut it.