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

[Lexicus]

Two more. Won't work.

I think you misunderstood me.

EDIT: I think Malthus' theory needs to be taken a bit more critically, personally.

 

[Lexicus]

I dunno, as my high school English teacher liked to say, procreation is the poor man's recreation.

Well, I'm talking about giving women careers of their own, letting them interact with the cash nexus directly instead of through men.

 

[onejayhawk]

I think you misunderstood me.

EDIT: I think Malthus' theory needs to be taken a bit more critically, personally.

Misunderstood how? Birth control cannot be effectively used where needed. That seems to be squarely on point.

Malthus was much more important through the lines of thought he initiated than for his own work, which is simplistic.

J

 

[Lexicus]

Misunderstood because I'm not suggesting that if we simply distribute birth control everywhere, our problems are solved.

 

[El_Machinae]

Back on topic, we'd mentioned CCS upthread. Turns out that it's viable in certain locations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/science/carbon-capture-and-sequestration-iceland.html

CCS is certainly a needed tool. And color me surprised that it's a state-owned utility that's funding the actual efforts, eh? It's because AGW is a market failure, and continues to be as long as the fossil carbon industries continue to allow it to be.

But scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and other institutions have come up with a different way to store CO2 that might eliminate that problem. Their approach involves dissolving the gas with water and pumping the resulting mixture — soda water, essentially — down into certain kinds of rocks, where the CO2 reacts with the rock to form a mineral called calcite. By turning the gas into stone, scientists can lock it away permanently.

 

[Farm Boy]

How easy are the rocks to burn or dissolve when we get around to dealing with tuning, assuming we don't just kill each other in the meantime?

 

[Narz]

Two more. Won't work.

The problems of population pressure are more political than real. Hunger is political leverage. It always has been. In Africa, where the hunger is worst and population growth is highest (see how those go together), birth control is impractical tending to impossible. Remove the political obstacles, the food is available to feed everyone. Do that and the birth rate will decline.

J

Birth control can and does work and those who bring contraceptive options to poor women are extremely noble & do make a difference. If you depend on your husband and have trouble saying no the ability to covertly take a contraceptive pill and reduce your family size from 6 kids to 1 or 2 will make a huge difference in your quality of life and that of the children.

 

[onejayhawk]

Birth control can and does work and those who bring contraceptive options to poor women are extremely noble & do make a difference. If you depend on your husband and have trouble saying no the ability to covertly take a contraceptive pill and reduce your family size from 6 kids to 1 or 2 will make a huge difference in your quality of life and that of the children.

Not in places where the birth rate is highest. Birth rate spikes where things like access to food is dicey. Any medical is scarce and birth control is way down the list of priorities. Put a map of highest birth rates on top of a map of famine. The two will largely coincide. Another correlation is in a war zone.

J

 

[classical_hero]

https://lawofmarkets.com/2016/06/18/unprecedented/paris-floods-1910-2016/

Apparently the current flood are due to climate change, but the 1910 ones weren't. Interesting.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's a statistical thing, determined through multi-factorial regressions.

Both lightning and campers can cause forest fires. Denying that a camper started a forest fire because "there have been historical lightning fires" isn't viable. It's an alternative theory, for sure, but then you test both with additional evidence.

 

[W|M]

Also the Industrial Revolution started about 100 years before 1910

 

[onejayhawk]

Also the Industrial Revolution started about 100 years before 1910

Closer to 200 years. It depends on your starting point, but the patenting of the steam engine in 1712 is a common one. Watt's improved design in 1769 is another. In the interim, there were several developments that revolutionized textiles and Kleist's introduction of the capacitor.

J

 

[stfoskey12]

There seems to be debate over whether or not the Atlantic Ocean circulation is slowing down due to humans. Some scientists think we haven't caused enough melting of Greenland ice to cause a slowdown, while others think the slowdown is unprecedented in recent centuries. However, continued warming would be more likely to have a significant impact on Atlantic Ocean circulation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/06/20/a-huge-science-debate-is-brewing-over-whether-weve-messed-up-the-atlantic-oceans-circulation/?postshare=2701466439195522&tid=ss_tw

 

[Bootstoots]

In maps of global warming, where red is hotter than some baseline and blue is colder, there's a really suspicious large blue blob in the central North Atlantic at about 50-60 degrees north, against a nearly global background of various shades of orange and red. This local cooling has been taken as a sign of a slowdown in the Gulf Stream and the broader AMOC, although I'm not sure how solid it is as evidence of this.

 

[Lexicus]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...bout-a-cold-blob-in-the-north-atlantic-ocean/
That article quotes a scientist saying

The fact that a record-hot planet Earth coincides with a record-cold northern Atlantic is quite stunning. There is strong evidence — not just from our study — that this is a consequence of the long-term decline of the Gulf Stream System, i.e. the Atlantic ocean’s overturning circulation AMOC [Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation], in response to global warming.

EDIT: this is from 2015, the one two posts up is much more recent so should probably be trusted more.

 

[stfoskey12]

I found an interesting article from 1995 saying global warming would be a good thing. Though the article seems to propose that the Holocene Climatic Optimum is warmer than later estimates suggest. I think recent estimates suggest the globe was less than 1°C warmer then than today. The article seriously underestimates the impact of humans on recent climate change, but considering it is 20 years old, and the Earth was cooler then, that is unsurprising.

http://stanford.edu/~moore/Boon_To_Man.html

As an example, when the article was published, and claimed the U.S. hadn't warmed, the 10 warmest years on record nationally were as follows:
1934
1921
1931
1990
1953
1987
1954
1939
1986
1938
Only three of the ten warmest were in the previous 20 years.

Now the 10 warmest years are:
2012
2015
1998
2006
1934
1921
1999
1931
2001
2007
Seven of the ten warmest are currently in the previous 20 years.

 

[Bootstoots]

I suspect that humanity is on average better off with CO2 levels of 350 ppm vs 280. The main problem isn't that we raised CO2 above natural levels, it's that we did it by too much and are continuing to increase it at ~2.1 ppm/yr when we're already at 400.

Just like with individual toxicology, it's the dose that matters. Drink 10 L of distilled water in one go and you'll probably die; eat 10 ug of cyanide and nothing will go wrong.

 

[Lexicus]

It's also the pace. Drink 10L of distilled water in 30 seconds, you got a problem. Do it in ten days, you're fine.

 

[Bootstoots]

Yeah, that too of course. I should have said dose per unit time.

 

[stfoskey12]

The minimum Arctic sea ice extent tied 2007 for second lowest on record. Every year from 2007 to now had a lower extent than every year before 2007. Only 2012 had a lower minimum sea ice extent.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/