[RD] Global Warming/Climate Change:What are your thoughts II?

[El_Machinae]

What would your political solutions be? How would you arrange the political power to stabilize under 450ppm, and the clock starting at 1992?

My problem with skeptics isn't the skepticism, other than it being a safe space for denialism. My problem is the lack of proposals on how to safely brake as illumination increases.

You can drive faster in a fog if you have a faster braking speed.

 

[Bootstoots]

I mean, we probably aren't going to level off at 450 ppm even if all the world's politicians are fully engaged. That's less than 25 years of current emissions. We might stretch that time out a bit, but I don't know of any realistic scenario that has us actually peaking at 450 without absurd things like large-scale carbon removal. 500 might actually happen though, and it makes for a nice round number. I'm worried that the focus on 450 ppm and 2 C is going to lead to a sense of resignation once we exceed those targets, and I don't think our actions would suggest that we are actually serious about those goals anyway.

 

[El_Machinae]

450 might not be feasible NOW. It could be, but we'd need to be both lucky and determined.
But I'm calling out the skeptics. They've had over 20 years. And I don't think they could even have done it starting in 1992. They just don't have the necessary political tools in their toolkit. That they've accelerated us through the fog irks me, but their skepticism makes me realize that they don't even have a brake.

We need their help, but the cognitive leaps cannot solely be done by us.

 

[Senethro]

It would be nice if the political solution actually addressed the problem. Too often, eg the Obama Administration, money goes to dead ends and pork barrels.

J

It would be nice if the foot dragging Party of No allowed legislation through without requiring substantial bribes to their unrelated pet causes!

 

[Bootstoots]

450 might not be feasible NOW. It could be, but we'd need to be both lucky and determined.
But I'm calling out the skeptics. They've had over 20 years. And I don't think they could even have done it starting in 1992. They just don't have the necessary political tools in their toolkit. That they've accelerated us through the fog irks me, but their skepticism makes me realize that they don't even have a brake.

We need their help, but the cognitive leaps cannot solely be done by us.

They don't want a brake. They want to go faster and faster in the fog. Casey Jones would be proud.

It seems to me that what's going on is that global warming throws a giant contradiction into free-market ideology. I mean, it's a global externality that happens in direct proportion to how much of the main industrial-era fuels are consumed, and which mostly affects people in the future, with large amounts of uncertainty. That's the perfect scenario to cause people to try to rationalize going ahead anyway, especially if they have an ideology that emphasizes individual profit and disdains large-scale government intervention.

I'm still waiting for them to finally admit that it's happening and start trying to address it with geoengineering schemes. Dumping ever-increasing quantities of sulfuric acid aerosols into the stratosphere would allow them to have their cake and eat it too, for only a few billion dollars a year. Of course this is a terrible idea for a variety of reasons, but the will to consume fossil fuels is strong.

Brilliantly, they also managed to turn global warming denial/skepticism/apathy into something of a right-wing populist cause as well, with environmentalists playing right into their hands. Joe Sixpack really does see global warming as one of those annoying liberal causes, opposed to his Ford F-150 and always trying to increase his cost of living. I'm not sure how to reverse that, really.

 

[onejayhawk]

What would your political solutions be? How would you arrange the political power to stabilize under 450ppm, and the clock starting at 1992?

My problem with skeptics isn't the skepticism, other than it being a safe space for denialism. My problem is the lack of proposals on how to safely brake as illumination increases.

You can drive faster in a fog if you have a faster braking speed.

If in fact the 450PPM line is what you think it is, work out a plan to deal with it. You have already reached the upper limit of your political power. The pendulum is swinging against you and overreaching is a big reason.

It would be nice if the foot dragging Party of No allowed legislation through without requiring substantial bribes to their unrelated pet causes!

Accepting the bribes has caused them serious problems. They will probably stop. Remember you stated this when you have to bribe them to even talk.

They don't want a brake. They want to go faster and faster in the fog. Casey Jones would be proud.

Agreed. You have managed to convince them that it is all a scam. I'm somewhat sympathetic and I don't buy 90% of the proposals. They boil down to a naked demand for power.

J

 

[Bootstoots]

It's hard to imagine serious ways to address global warming that do not involve substantial government intervention. It's an externality problem or a tragedy of the commons, where if individuals and corporations all do what is in their own best interest, everybody collectively suffers, including (especially) people who caused disproportionately little of the problem. The mainstream economic consensus is that this is a situation in which government intervention is required in the form of a tax or a cap-and-trade scheme to push some of the costs back onto the emitters in proportion to what they emit. Doing this on a global scale is very difficult, to say the least, and doing it on a local or national scale still results in the costs being pushed to the consumer, who isn't going to be happy about it.

Further, it is in our best collective interest to subsidize renewable energy in order to drive its cost down - especially the costs of energy storage, which is the big question mark in the whole "can we really power modern industrial society entirely on renewable energy" question. I'd argue that this is the biggest question of the 21st century - can we really make our way of life sustainable? We've already made quite a bit of progress with heavy government support, but there's still a very, very long way to go.

The result is going to be that humans will remain humans, and we blast through 450 and probably 500 ppm, likely much worse, and even if we were as serious about this problem in 1992 as we are today, although the earlier start might buy us something like 30-50 ppm in peak CO2 concentration.

For a good idea of what being serious about global warming while still growing the economy looks like, I'd nominate Germany. They started at 1248 Mt CO2e (including CH4, N2O, etc.) in 1990 and reached 912 Mt in 2015. If my math's right, that's 1.25% per year. Not bad for a growing economy, although their emissions have been flat since 2009, so I do wonder if they've run into some current limits. On a per-capita basis, they're at roughly half the US+Canada+Australia average with the same quality of life, so there is a lot of comparatively easy room for improvement. None of this changes the fact that cuts in emissions need to be far faster than 1.25%/year to get to 450 or 500 ppm, or to reach the 2 C target assuming 3 C/doubling, and that the developing world will likely continue developing with comparatively cheap coal, so the developed world needs to cut back its emissions even faster. This is just clearly not going to happen.

 

[onejayhawk]

Understood, but I think that is the task of the moment. Buy time, revise projections, get a MUCH more reliable model. Understand that the principle opportunity for action has largely passed. Work on small, inexpensive changes because large changes are not possible politically.

I have said it before, but it bears repeating. You need a reliable time frame. You no not have one. Worst case scenarios are considered alarmist and the last generation has proven it so.

J

 

[Bootstoots]

Having models or a time frame that would satisfy you is really not in the cards, unfortunately. There are a variety of problems that improve only slowly with increases in computer performance. I'll explain one of the biggest problems.

Global models currently have grid resolutions going down to about 1 degree longitude by 1 degree latitude ([0-110] by 110 km), a figure that has been slowly but steadily improving. To run a model like this, you need many thousands of processor-hours on the world's fastest supercomputers. But this is nowhere near enough to resolve important features like individual thunderstorms, clouds, turbulence, mountains, and so on. These sorts of things have to be parameterized by using empirical equations, but while this is somewhat better than nothing, it isn't a very reliable way of dealing with them. By way of comparison, weather models can have grid spacing down to about 4 km x 4 km and get decent results, but with much shorter simulated timescales (a week or two).

Now suppose you want to change the resolution to 0.5 degree x 0.5 degree. In order to do this, you have to quadruple the number of cells (factor of two in both S-N and W-E directions). Then you have to double the number of simulated time steps, because now things move from one cell to the next twice as often. The net result is that each factor of 2 in resolution requires a factor of 8 times more computational power. Or a factor of 16, if you also want to double the vertical resolution.

Even if Moore's Law keeps cranking along at the usual factor of 2 every 2 years, which it may not, we will not have the luxury of having especially good models for a very long time. The whole thing about climate change (and one of the things that makes it so politically difficult) is that we have to make decisions without full information. Whatever the consequences are, they'll be baked in before we have the level of information we'd like to have.

 

[onejayhawk]

Ya.

There we see the basic problem. You are so fixated on the worst case that you will not deal with real life issues. El Mac has gone on about how we knew a generation ago that we needed to eliminate coal. On its face this is dubious and on inspection gets shakier. Coal soot, on the other hand, is a real and pressing problem. However, that is not how the topic is addressed. Coal gas would be a major step in the right direction, but the issue is a non-starter.

It does not help that the advocates of carbon reduction have a massive carbon footprint.

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven
Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own rede.​

Hamlet

J

 

[Bootstoots]

I'm fixated on the average case, or even slightly more optimistic than average, according to our admittedly incomplete understanding of climate science. That is to say, I expect peak concentrations of CO2 to occur somewhere around 600 ppm by the early 22nd century, leading to a total warming of about 3 C.

This puts us in a climate reminiscent of the mid-Pliocene warm period of 3.3-3.0 million years ago, which featured a sea level about 20 m above present levels with total deglaciation of West Antarctica and Greenland. Now it will take time (centuries to millennia) for that sea level rise to happen and the current IPCC projections are comparatively not bad at all (like 0.5 or 0.6 m this century, somewhat more thereafter). For several centuries thereafter, sea level rise occurs at a rate of something like 1 m/century as the ice slowly melts. If we're good and have stopped CO2 emissions by the end of the century, then the levels will reduce somewhat as it equilibrates between the oceans and atmosphere; at equilibrium, 72% of newly emitted molecules dissolve in the ocean, much of that quite quickly. So there is a good chance we would avoid having the whole 20 m happen. But something like 1 m/century for many centuries is pretty disruptive.

Do you understand that this isn't alarmist or worst-case at all, based on our current understanding of the science? It's possible we'll get lucky and climate sensitivity will be lower than expected, in which case things work better for us. But I don't think we can hang our hopes on it; it's equally likely that things could be worse. The median projection is fairly troubling, and that's why I think it would be in our interests to try to reduce emissions as quickly as economically possible.

 

[onejayhawk]

What you are saying is 100 years in the future. I am skeptical it is that close. What is being sold to the public is 15-25 in the future. Since we have 25 years of tracking behind us, that's a problem.

J

 

[Bootstoots]

The current IPCC report gives a best estimate for its two middle-of-the-road emissions scenarios of 0.53 and 0.55 m of sea level rise as a global average in 2081-2100 compared to the 1986-2005 average. Past that, things get much sketchier and models go all over the place. I expect the rise to be somewhat faster in subsequent centuries because the current understanding of ice sheet dynamics is quite poor and probably biased low (where the dynamics are even included), and because the paleoclimate data indicate the potential for comparatively very rapid changes in sea level: a rise of about 120 m occurred between 18000 years ago and 10000 years ago, or 1.5 m/century, against a background of temperature increases that were slower than today, and with peak rates that were considerably higher than that. We know also from the Eemian interglacial that an increase of just 2 C in temperate latitudes (less as a global average) resulted in a sea level rise of 5-10 m (probably 6 or 7), and we're likely to go well past that. The mid-Pliocene warm period was about 3 C warmer globally with a sea level 20 m higher. If we follow the path we're currently following, we lock ourselves in to many centuries of sea level rise.

Of course that's just one impact. Probably an even bigger deal will be that weather patterns will shift in unpredictable ways, causing some areas to experience an increased frequency of droughts (relative to the old climate) and others to experience more floods, while the incidence of heat waves (again relative to old climate) goes up as well. The result is that the agriculture we've developed under the old climate will stop making sense in many areas under the new one. This will cause major disruptions in food supply, especially in poorer areas that rely heavily on subsistence farming.

The reason for the 15-25 year timeline is that that's the amount of time we have to reduce emissions in order to mitigate climate change for future generations. About 2/3 of the total temperature change due to a pulse of CO2 happens in the first 70 years, with the remaining third spread out over a longer timespan. So there is a lag of two or three generations between the emission of the CO2 and the time when most of the effect is felt, creating an incentive to go full speed ahead now and leave the consequences to future generations.

While climate change isn't the sort of thing to run around screaming about, it will impose substantial and increasing costs on future generations. It's definitely a thing that needs to be taken into account and minimized by, among other things, making people pay for their externalities.

 

[onejayhawk]

You are running around screaming. At least some are. It's a big part of the problem.

J

 

[Narz]

It's a reaction to the apathy that is so prevalent. How much damage has to be done before people give a damn?

 

[onejayhawk]

It's a reaction to the apathy that is so prevalent. How much damage has to be done before people give a damn?

Which is exactly the wrong answer. It gives rise to Chicken Little comparisons.

J

 

[El_Machinae]

What you are saying is 100 years in the future. I am skeptical it is that close. What is being sold to the public is 15-25 in the future. Since we have 25 years of tracking behind us, that's a problem.

J

How can it be 25 years in the future, if the goal is to reach 450 ppm by 2050, and we're assuming that this will prevent some of the most egregious harms? We're now in the time of warning signs, not in the times of disasters.

Upthread, you mentioned clarity. That can only be done with science and time. Again, it's like driving through a fog, the faster you're going the harder it is to brake in time and the harder the impact is.

It's a risk-based market failure. It lacks a scheme whereby the extra foisted risk is consented to (globally, we've consented to 1.5 C). We currently lack a mechanism to compensate people damaged by others' misbehaviour. Etc. etc.

If you're driving through the fog, and refuse to have insurance, your unwilling passengers are allowed to ask you to slow down. Greater funding of science on this topic is the equivalent of getting better fog lights, but you get way more proportionate reaction time by not accelerating.

Too many of the factors are exponential trends. But again, I don't think the Right even has a mechanism by AGW can be dealt with. Even allowing 1992 to be a blank slate, there's no mechanism. And factoring in the 24 years of might-makes-right buffer consumption, I entirely don't think they can put together a modern plan. It doesn't matter how much clarity regarding the relative risks in the year 2070 become available, the Right doesn't even have the necessary tools in their toolkit.

edit: I want to be clear, we didn't learn in 1992 what the limit was. We learned in 1992 of the existence of the limit. The need for improved clarity was obvious before action could be taken. But the culpability for needed actions began at that time. In 1992, we discovered that each of the offspring's credit card was being linked to the inheritance money. We didn't know the interest rate, we didn't know the size of the inheritance. But we also saw that one of the kids was spending waaaaay more than the others.

 

[Lexicus]

The Right has no mechanism by which Global Warming can be dealt with because they don't believe in it. Whether they are claiming it doesn't exist or taking a BS fatalist stance that there is nothing to be done anyway, the logic of the Right's position WRT global warming is simply that they don't like the implications, and therefore the chain of logic leading to those implications must be broken by whatever means necessary.
Whether this means engaging in conspiracy theory-style nonsense about a librul hoax, or claiming that the science remains unsettled, or saying that there is nothing humans can do about the climate no matter what, the real issue here is pretty simple.
Global warming clearly requires governments to do something about it - it cannot be solved merely through private action - and the logic of dealing with it leads toward more internationalism, or even - horror of horrors- that Americans might be held accountable for their actions WRT the international community when those actions are terribly harmful.
Honestly, I feel sorry for onejayhawk. He isn't one of the liars himself, but he's clearly been deceived by liars or charlatans, and his children - assuming he has any - will (not may, but assuredly will) pay the price for our lack of action now.

The thing is, it is a basic fallacy to even believe that addressing climate change is necessarily in conflict with economic growth. There is no economic cost to addressing climate change. Reorienting the economy toward sustainable energy creation is a good thing, and mitigating climate change's effects to the largest extent possible is a good thing. Both will increase the real resources available to us and decrease problems that consume or reduce available resources.

There is no trade-off in the aggregate - it is rather like free trade, a win-win. That doesn't mean there aren't losers and winners though - the only question is, how will the transition be structured, managed, carried out? My guess is it will be done in such a way that the workers in the fossil fuel industry are screwed.

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't think their lack of tools is because they don't believe in it. It's because they literally lack the tools. How does one handle the forceful seizure of someone's property who's 5000 miles away and 20 years in the future?

Nations have enough trouble with intergenerational seizure, but at least there's a mechanism by which that seizure can be paid off intuitively. "I borrowed money from you, but I used it to buy a greater growth rate." We're imperfect at it, but it's there.

But how do you borrow another nation's buffer, and pay them back sufficiently? It's hard.

 

[onejayhawk]

The Right has no mechanism by which Global Warming can be dealt with because they don't believe in it.

While this is true, it is only partly the problem. One recurring theme is that the climate change movement is about power, not climate.

The sticky part is that they can sort of prove it. Oversold claims, clearly irrelevant and sometimes harmful programs, profligate use of resources by conservationists, etc. Worst of all is the 97% claim, which is as transparently bogus as a Donald Trump tweet.

Regardless, the right is politically ascendant. You need to learn to speak a language they can accept. If it is really about saving the world, a radical change in approach is overdue.

J