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AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #100 on: July 18, 2017, 11:10:43 PM »
I don't see the 105 number used very often, a lot of references to the 86 number - I am not debating your point, more an issue of the media/scientific press coverage. 105 just makes things even worse of course, completely destroys the "natural gas as a bridge fuel" story.

The 105 value includes feedback contributions, see

Drew T. Shindell, Greg Faluvegi, Dorothy M. Koch, Gavin A. Schmidt, Nadine Unger & Susanne E. Bauer (Oct 30, 2009)"Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions", Science  Vol. 326, Issue 5953, pp. 716-718, DOI: 10.1126/science.1174760

http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1325972.files/SLCPs/Science-2009-Shindell-716-8.pdf


See also:

W. J. Collins, M. M. Fry, H. Yu, J. S. Fuglestvedt, D. T. Shindell, and J. J. West (2013), "Global and regional temperature-change potentials for near-term climate forcers", Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 2471–2485, doi:10.5194/acp-13-2471-2013

https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/13/2471/2013/acp-13-2471-2013.pdf

&

Etminan, G. Myhre, E. J. Highwood & K. P. Shine (27 December 2016), "Radiative forcing of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide: A significant revision of the methane radiative forcing", Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/2016GL071930

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL071930/full

Abstract: "New calculations of the radiative forcing (RF) are presented for the three main well-mixed greenhouse gases, methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide. Methane's RF is particularly impacted because of the inclusion of the shortwave forcing; the 1750–2011 RF is about 25% higher (increasing from 0.48 W m−2 to 0.61 W m−2) compared to the value in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2013 assessment; the 100 year global warming potential is 14% higher than the IPCC value. We present new simplified expressions to calculate RF. Unlike previous expressions used by IPCC, the new ones include the overlap between CO2 and N2O; for N2O forcing, the CO2 overlap can be as important as the CH4 overlap. The 1750–2011 CO2 RF is within 1% of IPCC's value but is about 10% higher when CO2 amounts reach 2000 ppm, a value projected to be possible under the extended RCP8.5 scenario."
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sidd

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #101 on: July 19, 2017, 09:26:53 PM »
Re: fear

Lapham, as always, is very well worth reading. Here is his latest on fear as an indispensable instrument of power and what it has wrought over the years leading to this present political landscape.

"The stockpiling of domestic fear for all seasons (the instrument of power that no self-respecting military empire can afford to leave home without) is the political alchemist’s trick of changing lead into gold ..."

"The war on terror brought up to combat strength the nation’s ample reserves of xenophobic paranoia, the American people told to live in fear—suspect your neighbor and watch the sky; buy duct tape, avoid the Washington Monument, hide the children."

Read the whole thing.

http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/fear/petrified-forest

sidd

AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #102 on: July 19, 2017, 09:45:39 PM »
fear—suspect your neighbor and watch the sky; buy duct tape, avoid the Washington Monument, hide the children."

fear - that if officials acknowledge how bad climate change is that people will expect them to do something about it; that if we decide to do something about it, that we will need to temper our addiction to material goods and big egos; that if we try to do something about it and fail that we will have wasted an opportunity to consume more goods and feed our egos; that if we try and succeed that we will makes 'others' better off than ourselves, when we think that it is better to be a big frog in a small warming pond than to be a small frog in a big pond filled with 'others' that might harm us.
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AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #103 on: July 19, 2017, 09:58:44 PM »
Here is a link to a 2007 article entitled: "The Roots of Fear", when Obama was president.  Fear is an evolutionary reality associated with the need to survive.  Thus the point is not to deny the reality of fear and fear mongering, the point is to face fear, see it for what it is and to choose a sustainable path forward.

http://www.newsweek.com/roots-fear-94379

Extract: "It's as pointless for Obama or anyone else to rail against the use of fear to sway voters as it is to bemoan humans' inability to hear pitches as high as dogs can. The brain structure that processes perceptions and thoughts and tags them with the warning "Be afraid, be very afraid!" is the amygdala. Located near the brain's center, this almond-shaped bundle of neurons evolved long before the neocortex, the seat of conscious awareness."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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jai mitchell

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #104 on: July 19, 2017, 11:56:43 PM »
This may be the best article I have seen about the topic
https://www.commondreams.org/author/margaret-klein-salamon

The Planet Is Warming. And It's Okay to Be Afraid
Why being fearful can be part of a healthy, heroic response to the climate crisis

Quote
Affect tolerance—the ability to tolerate a wide range of feelings in oneself and others—is a critical psychological skill. On the other hand, affect phobia—the fear of certain feelings in oneself or others—is a major psychological problem, as it causes people to rely heavily on psychological defenses.

Much of the climate movement seems to suffer from affect phobia, which is probably not surprising given that scientific culture aspires to be purely rational, free of emotional influence. Further, the feelings involved in processing the climate crisis—fear, grief, anger, guilt, and helplessness—can be overwhelming. But that doesn’t mean we should try to avoid "making" people feel such things. Experiencing them is a normal, healthy, necessary part of coming to terms with the climate crisis.
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AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #105 on: July 20, 2017, 12:33:55 AM »
jai, thanks for the link to the great article.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/07/17/planet-warming-and-its-okay-be-afraid

Extract: "Gradualist half measures, such as a gradually phased-in carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, that seem "politically realistic" but have no hope of actually restoring a safe climate, are not adequate to channel people's fear into productive action."

However, my opinion differs from the above quote extracted from the article; in that I believe that any efforts that are made, whether "gradualist half measures", or not, can help those few who survive the coming collapse and thus should be encouraged, even if fear prevents the majority of people from taking productive action.

Edit, that said if we can get enough people to declare war on climate change then that would be even better (see the linked article on how Republicans are better at using war language to motivate the public than the Democrats):

"Just don't call it 'climate change' What Republicans in Dallas can teach us about saving the planet"

http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-undividing-america-2017-6

Extract: "John Walsh III had spent the past half-hour sitting in the front row listening to former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark, who happens to be a retired four-star general, try to convince the crowd that climate change is a national-security issue.

Then Walsh took the microphone.

"This is a war, and we need to treat it like one," he said. “I'm on the other side of the aisle from you politically, but I'm right in the trench with you on this issue.”

You can find consensus in the war against climate change — as long as you don’t call it “climate change.”"
« Last Edit: July 20, 2017, 12:52:18 AM by AbruptSLR »
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jai mitchell

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #106 on: July 20, 2017, 03:43:36 AM »
Quote
You can find consensus in the war against climate change — as long as you don’t call it “climate change.”"

Then let's just call it what it is:  Global Warming.
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AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #107 on: July 20, 2017, 04:30:43 AM »
Quote
You can find consensus in the war against climate change — as long as you don’t call it “climate change.”"

Then let's just call it what it is:  Global Warming.

It does seem difficult to paint climate change/global warming as a wartime enemy that everyone can fight against, when all the different tribes/gangs know that first they need to protect their own turf with their own gang call-signs and colors against the 'others'.
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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6roucho

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #108 on: July 20, 2017, 08:09:33 AM »

http://www.newsweek.com/roots-fear-94379

Extract: "It's as pointless for Obama or anyone else to rail against the use of fear to sway voters as it is to bemoan humans' inability to hear pitches as high as dogs can. The brain structure that processes perceptions and thoughts and tags them with the warning "Be afraid, be very afraid!" is the amygdala. Located near the brain's center, this almond-shaped bundle of neurons evolved long before the neocortex, the seat of conscious awareness."

Hmmm. I think should all feel free to rail against the manipulation of fear to sway voters, which is a complex social activity that originates in the same place as the railing: the prefrontal cortex.

Great posts btw, ASLR.

AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #109 on: July 20, 2017, 04:30:28 PM »

http://www.newsweek.com/roots-fear-94379

Extract: "It's as pointless for Obama or anyone else to rail against the use of fear to sway voters as it is to bemoan humans' inability to hear pitches as high as dogs can. The brain structure that processes perceptions and thoughts and tags them with the warning "Be afraid, be very afraid!" is the amygdala. Located near the brain's center, this almond-shaped bundle of neurons evolved long before the neocortex, the seat of conscious awareness."

Hmmm. I think should all feel free to rail against the manipulation of fear to sway voters, which is a complex social activity that originates in the same place as the railing: the prefrontal cortex.

Great posts btw, ASLR.

I probably should have pointed out that Newsweek is a moderately conservative magazine and they were throwing 'shade' on Obama.  Which to me highlights Hegel's point that all '-isms' contain partial truth and the thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectic unfolds as a result of society trying to keep the consequences of such partial truths in balance.
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #110 on: July 20, 2017, 04:59:06 PM »
"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." Donald Rumsfeld

In the spirit of Hegel's dialectic and his belief that art should be used as a tool to progressively reduce the thesis-antithesis oscillations; I note that the subtext of Rumsfeld's quote could be used as an example of how GOP partial insight could be used in a PR ad campaign to paint climate change as a wartime enemy, i.e.:

"Climate change uncertainty is a playground for perversion against children" together with images like the attached.
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AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #111 on: July 20, 2017, 05:12:11 PM »
Or another ad to paint climate change as a wartime enemy could be to show some images of the WAIS before and after cliff-failure-induced collapse, followed by footage (see the linked video) from the movie "Chasing Ice" of an actual 'small-scale' cliff-failure event.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=chasing+ice&&view=detail&mid=E0694E7ED3F05874F53CE0694E7ED3F05874F53C&FORM=VRDGAR
« Last Edit: July 20, 2017, 05:19:40 PM by AbruptSLR »
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jai mitchell

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #112 on: July 20, 2017, 05:31:20 PM »
Quote
You can find consensus in the war against climate change — as long as you don’t call it “climate change.”"

Then let's just call it what it is:  Global Warming.

It does seem difficult to paint climate change/global warming as a wartime enemy that everyone can fight against, when all the different tribes/gangs know that first they need to protect their own turf with their own gang call-signs and colors against the 'others'.

It is not necessary to have a human enemy to catalyze a total-society mobilization against a collective national threat.  It takes a declaration of a climate emergency as a national threat and government action to streamline the production and adoption of fossil-free technologies as policies that work to rapidly shift our economy away from GHG producing activities.
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AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #113 on: July 20, 2017, 07:33:55 PM »
Robert Sapolsky is one of the leading neuroscientists in the world (and winner of a MacArthur Genius grant), studying stress in primates (including humans), and he has recently rewritten a 700 page book entitled: "Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst". 

The following is his Ted talk entitled: "Behave: The Biology of Our Best and Worse Selves"

https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_biology_of_our_best_and_worst_selves

Extract: "How can humans be so compassionate and altruistic -- and also so brutal and violent? To understand why we do what we do, neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky looks at extreme context, examining actions on timescales from seconds to millions of years before they occurred. In this fascinating talk, he shares

his cutting edge research into the biology that drives our worst and best behaviors."

Sapolsky points-out that mankind would need to make a substantial effort to over-come our tribalistic social/biological pre-conditioning.
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rboyd

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #114 on: July 23, 2017, 05:27:17 AM »
The 105 value includes feedback contributions

I have been trying to get my head around the gwp20 and gwp100 numbers for methane. The gwp20 number is a much more accurate representation of the current forcing by atmospheric GHGs (including methane). Using the gwp20 I get a CO2e ppm in the 700 region, increasing at more than 5ppm per year! That argues for some very fast increases in global temperatures over the next two decades.

We will need extensive CH4 capture, as well as CO2 capture, technologies.

TerryM

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #115 on: July 23, 2017, 01:02:31 PM »
The 105 value includes feedback contributions

I have been trying to get my head around the gwp20 and gwp100 numbers for methane. The gwp20 number is a much more accurate representation of the current forcing by atmospheric GHGs (including methane). Using the gwp20 I get a CO2e ppm in the 700 region, increasing at more than 5ppm per year! That argues for some very fast increases in global temperatures over the next two decades.

We will need extensive CH4 capture, as well as CO2 capture, technologies.


I've argued that since we are adding to the store of atmospheric methane, the only number that should be applied is the highest value, If we somehow stopped emitting methane, then in 20 years or 100 years those values would be appropriate. At present we replace all of the methane that is being destroyed, and more, so what we're measuring today is what is effecting our climate today, not a figure that assumes that a portion of it will be gone in 20 or 100 years.
If the CH4 concentrations should drop, I'll re-think my position.


Terry

AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #116 on: July 23, 2017, 04:28:46 PM »
We will need extensive CH4 capture, as well as CO2 capture, technologies.

It seems to me that the linked reference (and associated article) about biospheric feedback effect in a synchronously coupled model of human and Earth system is a play to try to document the potential validity of negative emissions technology like BECCS using ACME (Phase 1).  While ACME tries to account for the impact of phosphorous on the biosphere, I am concerned that much of their focus on BECCS is just happy talk, which will not prevent a socio-economic collapse in the 2050 to 2060 timeframe.  Nevertheless, it appears that these BECCS assumptions & associated projections will be rolled into both CMIP6 and AR6 to further the illusion that the situation is in capable hands (i.e. the DOE [which runs ACME] controlled by Rick Perry).

My point is that no matter how serious our situation is, decision makers like Rick Perry can always use happy talk about all the future CO2 and/or CH4 negative emissions technology that we are going to deploy in a few decades, just so that they don't have to do anything significant to lower emissions right now:

Peter E. Thornton et al, Biospheric feedback effects in a synchronously coupled model of human and Earth systems, Nature Climate Change (2017). DOI: 10.1038/nclimate3310

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v7/n7/full/nclimate3310.html?foxtrotcallback=true

Abstract: "Fossil fuel combustion and land-use change are the two largest contributors to industrial-era increases in atmospheric CO 2 concentration. Projections of these are thus fundamental inputs for coupled Earth system models (ESMs) used to estimate the physical and biological consequences of future climate system forcing. While historical data sets are available to inform past and current climate analyses, assessments of future climate change have relied on projections of energy and land use from energy–economic models, constrained by assumptions about future policy, land-use patterns and socio-economic development trajectories. Here we show that the climatic impacts on land ecosystems drive significant feedbacks in energy, agriculture, land use and carbon cycle projections for the twenty-first century. We find that exposure of human-appropriated land ecosystem productivity to biospheric change results in reductions of land area used for crops; increases in managed forest area and carbon stocks; decreases in global crop prices; and reduction in fossil fuel emissions for a low–mid-range forcing scenario. The feedbacks between climate-induced biospheric change and human system forcings to the climate system—demonstrated here—are handled inconsistently, or excluded altogether, in the one-way asynchronous coupling of energy–economic models to ESMs used to date."

See also the associated linked article entitled:  Titan simulations show importance of close two-way coupling between human and Earth systems"

https://phys.org/news/2017-07-titan-simulations-importance-two-way-coupling.html

Extract: "Through the Advanced Scientific Computing Research Leadership Computing Challenge program, Thornton's team was awarded 85 million compute hours to improve the Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) effort, a project sponsored by the Earth System Modeling program within DOE's Office of Biological and Environmental Research. Currently, ACME collaborators are focused on developing an advanced climate model capable of simulating 80 years of historic and future climate variability and change in 3 weeks or less of computing effort.

Now in its third year, the project has achieved several milestones—notably the development of ACME version 1 and the successful inclusion of human factors in one of its component models, the iESM.

"What's unique about ACME is that it's pushing the system to a higher resolution than has been attempted before," Thornton said. "It's also pushing toward a more comprehensive simulation capability by including human dimensions and other advances, yielding the most detailed Earth system models to date.

The development of iESM started before the ACME initiative when a multilaboratory team aimed to add new human dimensions—such as how people affect the planet to produce and consume energy—to Earth system models. The model—now a part of the ACME human dimensions component—is being merged with ACME in preparation for ACME version 2.

ACME version 1 will be publicly released in late-2017 for analysis and use by other researchers. Results from the model will also contribute to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, which provides foundational material for climate change assessment reports."
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AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #117 on: July 23, 2017, 04:47:24 PM »
The linked article illustrates my point, from my previous post, that decision makers like Rick Perry are planning to enable a major boost in US oil & gas production via fracking; while the cover-up the climate impacts from such production via imaginary future implementation of negative emissions technology:

Title: "Is energy 'dominance' the right goal for US policy?"

https://www.skepticalscience.com/energy-dominance-right-us-policy.html
« Last Edit: July 23, 2017, 04:52:55 PM by AbruptSLR »
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AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #118 on: July 23, 2017, 05:06:28 PM »
The linked "… and Then There's Physics" article acknowledges that people need to consider the higher climate impact scenarios more seriously:

Title: "Off for a couple of weeks"

https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2017/07/15/off-for-a-couple-of-weeks/

Extract: "I’ve also been slightly discouraged by the whole saga surrounding David Wallace-Wells article (I’ve linked to the annotated version, so you can check his sources and how he has responded to the criticism). I think there were aspects deserving of criticism, but I also think he was trying to do something interesting; highlight the possible severe outcomes if we do end up continuing to emit CO2 into the atmosphere. I might disagree with how he framed the issue, but I still think it is an aspect that we do need to consider. It’s also led to a lot of discussion, which is itself good. Some of the criticism could – in my view – have been a bit more charitable.

To be fair, some of the criticism of those who approach this from an alternative perspective might also be lacking in charity (and this may include some of my criticism too, to be honest) and I’m starting to be a little concerned that there is a fairly narrow region of parameter space that is regarded as acceptable."
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Neven

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #119 on: July 24, 2017, 12:00:02 AM »
I don't know if this has been posted already, but here's a RealNewsNetwork video with an interview with Michael Mann on this issue, published on YouTube today (click 'no longer available' if the window doesn't show):

! No longer available
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Don't confuse me with him

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rboyd

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #120 on: July 24, 2017, 04:01:33 AM »
Paul Beckwith's responses to Michael Mann et. al.











AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #121 on: July 25, 2017, 02:07:53 PM »
One big problem is that climate change is complex, so scientists like Mann can appear reasonable by pointing out that our carbon budget for achieving the Paris goals are as much as 40% lower than assumed in 2015; when in reality such estimates also ignore the very real risk that ECS is significantly higher than assumed in 2015 (not to mention Hansen's ice-climate feedback).

Andrew P. Schurer, Michael E. Mann, Ed Hawkins, Simon F. B. Tett & Gabriele C. Hegerl (2017), "Importance of the pre-industrial baseline for likelihood of exceeding Paris goals", Nature Climate Change; doi:10.1038/nclimate3345

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3345.html?foxtrotcallback=true

Abstract: "During the Paris conference in 2015, nations of the world strengthened the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by agreeing to holding ‘the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C’ (ref. 1). However, ‘pre-industrial’ was not defined. Here we investigate the implications of different choices of the pre-industrial baseline on the likelihood of exceeding these two temperature thresholds. We find that for the strongest mitigation scenario RCP2.6 and a medium scenario RCP4.5, the probability of exceeding the thresholds and timing of exceedance is highly dependent on the pre-industrial baseline; for example, the probability of crossing 1.5 °C by the end of the century under RCP2.6 varies from 61% to 88% depending on how the baseline is defined. In contrast, in the scenario with no mitigation, RCP8.5, both thresholds will almost certainly be exceeded by the middle of the century with the definition of the pre-industrial baseline of less importance. Allowable carbon emissions for threshold stabilization are similarly highly dependent on the pre-industrial baseline. For stabilization at 2 °C, allowable emissions decrease by as much as 40% when earlier than nineteenth-century climates are considered as a baseline."
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rboyd

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #122 on: July 25, 2017, 05:38:30 PM »
I've argued that since we are adding to the store of atmospheric methane, the only number that should be applied is the highest value, If we somehow stopped emitting methane, then in 20 years or 100 years those values would be appropriate. At present we replace all of the methane that is being destroyed, and more, so what we're measuring today is what is effecting our climate today, not a figure that assumes that a portion of it will be gone in 20 or 100 years.
If the CH4 concentrations should drop, I'll re-think my position.

Terry

Agreed. The willful ignorance by the MSM and the scientists of the breaking of the 450ppm CO2e limit, even using the methane GWP100, is quite stunning to me. Using the UN IPCC-defined limit (i.e. CO2e vs. CO2 only) there is no carbon budget, striking that not even the likes of Anderson talk about this.

There is some logic that methane is relatively short-lived (14 years) and therefore if action is taken to reduce emissions, levels could fall relatively quickly. Given the complete lack of any such policies to reduce methane, and continuing increases in agriculture and natural gas production, this is not relevant. Also, this does not apply to nitrous oxide which is not a short-lived gas.

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #123 on: July 25, 2017, 06:40:31 PM »
I posted this in the wrong thread. Re-posting here where it belongs.

Mann and mainstream science assume that civilization is the default state of the world. They also assume humans are inherently different and apart from the rest of nature. That's why they can hold in their minds massive extinctions for the world while humanity suffers from linear and insignificant harm.

I don't think that is scientific at all. Modern civilization  has existed for only a few generations.  This whole thing is just an experiment that could fail at anytime. That's what the science and history indicates. Civilizations fail, animals go extinct. To survive this we will have to wrestle nature into submission.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #124 on: July 26, 2017, 07:04:09 PM »
Being overly optimistic about climate change is mostly a very cruel state of mind:

Title: "Why Hope Is Dangerous When It Comes to Climate Change"

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/07/why_climate_change_discussions_need_apocalyptic_thinking.html

Extract: "Global warming discussions need apocalyptic thinking"
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jai mitchell

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #125 on: July 26, 2017, 07:15:06 PM »
I don't know if this has been posted already, but here's a RealNewsNetwork video with an interview with Michael Mann on this issue, published on YouTube today (click 'no longer available' if the window doesn't show):

! No longer available

Read this quote from the article and then watch the video, then tell me if you think Dr. Mann is intentionally deceiving his viewers.

Quote
What follows is not a series of predictions of what will happen — that will be determined in large part by the much-less-certain science of human response. Instead, it is a portrait of our best understanding of where the planet is heading absent aggressive action. It is unlikely that all of these warming scenarios will be fully realized, largely because the devastation along the way will shake our complacency.
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TerryM

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #126 on: July 27, 2017, 06:30:32 PM »
I've argued that since we are adding to the store of atmospheric methane, the only number that should be applied is the highest value, If we somehow stopped emitting methane, then in 20 years or 100 years those values would be appropriate. At present we replace all of the methane that is being destroyed, and more, so what we're measuring today is what is effecting our climate today, not a figure that assumes that a portion of it will be gone in 20 or 100 years.
If the CH4 concentrations should drop, I'll re-think my position.

Terry

Agreed. The willful ignorance by the MSM and the scientists of the breaking of the 450ppm CO2e limit, even using the methane GWP100, is quite stunning to me. Using the UN IPCC-defined limit (i.e. CO2e vs. CO2 only) there is no carbon budget, striking that not even the likes of Anderson talk about this.

There is some logic that methane is relatively short-lived (14 years) and therefore if action is taken to reduce emissions, levels could fall relatively quickly. Given the complete lack of any such policies to reduce methane, and continuing increases in agriculture and natural gas production, this is not relevant. Also, this does not apply to nitrous oxide which is not a short-lived gas.
I've had learned, trustworthy types try to explain to me why my understanding WRT CH4 forcing is just wrong. I confess that I still don't understand why this should be so.


Terry

Sigmetnow

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #127 on: July 27, 2017, 08:40:15 PM »
Climate Change Is Killing Us Right Now
The most obvious effect of global warming is not a doomsday scenario. Extreme heat is happening today, and wreaking havoc on vulnerable bodies.
    By Emily Atkin. July 20, 2017
Quote
A young, fit U.S. soldier is marching in a Middle Eastern desert, under a blazing summer sun. He’s wearing insulated clothing and lugging more than 100 pounds of gear, and thus sweating profusely as his body attempts to regulate the heat. But it’s 108 degrees out and humid, too much for him bear. The brain is one of the first organs affected by heat, so his judgment becomes impaired; he does not recognize the severity of his situation. Just as his organs begin to fail, he passes out. His internal temperature is in excess of 106 degrees when he dies.

An elderly woman with cardiovascular disease is sitting alone in her Chicago apartment on the second day of a massive heatwave. She has an air conditioner, but she’s on a fixed income and can’t afford to turn it on again—or maybe it broke and she can’t afford to fix it. Either way, she attempts to sleep through the heat again, and her core temperature rises.  To cool off, her body’s response is to work the heart harder, pumping more blood to her skin. But the strain on her heart is too much; it triggers cardiac arrest, and she dies.

Such scenarios could surely happen today, if they haven’t already. But as the world warms due to climate change, they’ll become all too common in just a few decades—and that’s according to modest projections. ...
https://newrepublic.com/article/143899/climate-change-killing-us-right-now
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rboyd

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #128 on: July 27, 2017, 10:47:44 PM »
I've argued that since we are adding to the store of atmospheric methane, the only number that should be applied is the highest value, If we somehow stopped emitting methane, then in 20 years or 100 years those values would be appropriate. At present we replace all of the methane that is being destroyed, and more, so what we're measuring today is what is effecting our climate today, not a figure that assumes that a portion of it will be gone in 20 or 100 years.
If the CH4 concentrations should drop, I'll re-think my position.

Terry

Agreed. The willful ignorance by the MSM and the scientists of the breaking of the 450ppm CO2e limit, even using the methane GWP100, is quite stunning to me. Using the UN IPCC-defined limit (i.e. CO2e vs. CO2 only) there is no carbon budget, striking that not even the likes of Anderson talk about this.

There is some logic that methane is relatively short-lived (14 years) and therefore if action is taken to reduce emissions, levels could fall relatively quickly. Given the complete lack of any such policies to reduce methane, and continuing increases in agriculture and natural gas production, this is not relevant. Also, this does not apply to nitrous oxide which is not a short-lived gas.
I've had learned, trustworthy types try to explain to me why my understanding WRT CH4 forcing is just wrong. I confess that I still don't understand why this should be so.


Terry

Seems that we have some of the very same conversations! I have the same confession.

AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #129 on: July 27, 2017, 11:43:05 PM »
With regards to climate change: "If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately"
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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Bruce Steele

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #130 on: July 28, 2017, 03:45:42 AM »
With a hat tip to Ken Provost over at Scribblers is this piece by Richard  Heinberg.

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-07-27/are-we-doomed-lets-have-a-conversation/
 
Richard points out that there are not many people discussing the issues that were recently elevated in the Wallace -Wells piece. Fewer still putting thought into how to plan for the various likely downside effects.
 I was cooking for a large group of foodies yesterday. I served acorn bacon souffle, acorn chocolate
mousse and farm sourced bratwurst. It was an occasion to talk about acorns because very few people have tried them. There are people in the food culture interested in foraging and acorns make for a nice conversation icebreaker. I tried to bring up my zero ff garden efforts as an additional subject that parallels foraging , for me anyway ,but I find very few other people able to make the connection. O.K. these are ,for the most part ,citizens of a very wealthy enclave and testing survival techniques is probably very far from their general train of thought. You would think getting off ff might be an issue of interest but no luck. They are curious about trying acorns as a novelty and that is about as far as it goes.
 On the other end of the political spectrum I have introduced my farm experiments to some right wing friends and invariably they congratulate me for my efforts at self sufficiency. I don't really plan what I do around self sufficiency but it is apparently the easiest way to make a conversational connection .
I am still struggling at how I can get liberals to make a mental leap into what might be neccesary to achieve zero fossil fuel goals within the next thirty years.
 Life here on the farm often deals with life and death. Today was one of those days where the vet gets called , we do everything we can but I end up making the call and burying the little piglet . X-Ray broken back, nothing to do. Sometimes I think a daily connection with death makes my thoughts about how I can move forward in dealing with climate change more visceral. Makes me kinda hard maybe.  I think people are just unhinged from how their daily decisions are connected to life, the enviornment and ultimately climate change and the deadly consequences of their daily choices. For me the daily choices and the future ramifications are inseparable. I do what I can, I prepare for the future, I feel like  a stranger among my peer group. Walking back is lonely, self sufficiency or future preparedness? Likely little help either way. So I have a hundred pigs every day dependent on me keeping the faith.
 Richard Heinberg is also agriculturally based. If I can't find more support from liberals I will start working harder with conservatives. Self sufficiency ,although lonely ,is better than denial.   

sidd

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #131 on: July 28, 2017, 05:26:07 AM »
Mr Steele wrote:
"Life here on the farm often deals with life and death. Today was one of those days where the vet gets called , we do everything we can but I end up making the call and burying the little piglet . X-Ray broken back, nothing to do. Sometimes I think a daily connection with death makes my thoughts about how I can move forward in dealing with climate change more visceral. Makes me kinda hard maybe."

Comes with the turf. Dealing with livestock is like that. They tell the kids not to name animals they're gonna eat.

" I think people are just unhinged from how their daily decisions are connected to life, the enviornment and ultimately climate change and the deadly consequences of their daily choices."

This is very true. Buying battery eggs or feedlot meat directly contributes to untold animal suffering. Divorcing human beings from their food supply allows them to easily condone horrible practices.

Eat less meat. That really helps, and in multiple ways.

sidd

Bruce Steele

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #132 on: July 28, 2017, 06:56:26 AM »
Dear Sidd, Eating less meat is yes part of the answer but only one part. I know you grow soybeans and make biodiesel and therefore you have figured out how to grow vegetables and reduce ff use. Maybe you could also help inform those interested in  soil fertility without animal manure or hydrocarbon based fertilizers? Soy is as you well know is largely based upon GMO seed stock and roundup. I assume you use GMO's but you haven't ever explained your operation in detail. GMO's reduce cultivation and fuel use but they are still part of an agricultural system that supports the meat based foodsystem you critique.
 My efforts at growing vegetables for a self sufficient farm , a self sufficient family, and ideally a self sufficient community, utilizes animals for soil health , food and fuel. If I can produce animals without the use of fossil fuels and at the same time create a fertile farm then I have no qualms with eating meat. Anyone who attempts such a solution will quickly realize animal protein is a precious commodity.  The large challenge is how to get even a small group of humans to take responsibility for every bit of their personal carbon footprint. They are the only chance that someone can get thru the coming bottleneck with a skillset to thrive after the deluge.
 If you think growing soy is a viable option do tell. Until then count me as an omnivore.
I am very tired of the I'm a vegan and that is a solution arguement without any details or proof that that system works. Do you live off your crop? How carbon free is it? How do you maintain soil health?How dependent are you on fossil fuels in the rest of your life? If you have solutions will they scale to
larger groups of humans?
 My fossil fuel garden is doing fine, I can't claim my whole operation is operating anywhere near ff free but that is where I would like to end up. Any helpful suggestions are appreciated . Flint corn crop has tasseled and set ears, the seed squash are up to size, the summer squash for drying are about 20", the beans are flowering and  getting ready
to set beans. I will have several hundred pounds of produce to start the acorn challenge with
OrganicSU in January.
 Anyone willing to test their self sustaining agriculture/foraging skills and help those who might be interested in something similar are invited to take up the challenge. No grocery store for as long as you can get your wife and family to cooperate. 
 

AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #133 on: July 28, 2017, 03:17:34 PM »
It is time for people to harness their fears (it is not Mann's job a scientist to distort his scientific reports because he thinks that making people frightened does not motivate them) and to work towards a "controlled crash" that helps post-crash generations:

Title: "Are We Doomed? Let’s Have a Conversation"

http://www.postcarbon.org/are-we-doomed-lets-have-a-conversation/

Extract: "Wells’s article drew rebukes from—of all people—climate scientists, who pointed out a few factual errors, but also insisted that scaring the public just doesn’t help. “Importantly, fear does not motivate,” responded Michael Mann with Susan Joy Hassol and Tom Toles, “and appealing to it is often counter-productive as it tends to distance people from the problem, leading them to disengage, doubt and even dismiss it.”

It’s true: apocalyptic warnings don’t move most people. Or, rather, they move most people away from the source of discomfort, so they simply tune out. But it’s also true that people feel a sense of deep, unacknowledged unease when they are fed “solutions” that they instinctively know are false or insufficient.

Others came to Wells’s defense. Margaret Klein Salamon, a clinical psychologist and founder of the climate action group The Climate Mobilization, which advocates for starting a “World War II-scale” emergency mobilization to convert from fossil fuels, writes, “it is OK, indeed imperative, to tell the whole, frightening story. . . . t’s the job of those of us trying to protect humanity and restore a safe climate to tell the truth about the climate crisis and help people process and channel their own feelings—not to preemptively try to manage and constrain those feelings.”

Our best hope at this point would seem to be a controlled crash that enables partial recovery at a lower level of population and resource use, and that therefore doesn’t lead to complete and utter oblivion (human extinction or close to it). Among those who understand the systemic nature of our problems, the controlled crash option is the subject of what may be the most interesting and important conversation that’s taking place on the planet just now. But only informed people who have gotten over denial and self-delusion are part of it.

This is not a conversation about the long-term trajectory of human cultural evolution, though that’s an interesting subject for speculation. Assuming there are survivors, what will human society look like following the crises ensuing from climate change and the end of fossil fuels and capitalism? David Fleming’s Surviving the Future and John Michael Greer’s The Ecotechnic Future offer useful thoughts in this regard. My own view is that it’s hard for us to envision what comes next because our imaginations are bounded by the reality we have known. What awaits will likely be as far removed from from modern industrial urban life as Iron-Age agrarian empires were from hunting-and-gathering bands. We are approaching one of history’s great discontinuities. The best we can do under the circumstances is to get our priorities and values straight (protect the vulnerable, preserve the best of what we have collectively achieved, and live a life that’s worthy) and put one foot in front of the other."

See also:

Title: "David Fleming’s “Surviving the Future”"

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-06-19/david-flemings-surviving-future/

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

sidd

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #134 on: July 28, 2017, 09:24:02 PM »
This is getting far afield of the thread topic, so i would prefer to continue discussion on a more appropriate thread. That said:

1) I am not advocating veganism. I am not a vegan. I would rather that people ate much less meat.. And the animals be raised humanely.

2) GMO feedstock for biodiesel: I have used a variety of feedstocks including GMO sourced. I will point out that i send vegetable oil thru food service industry and collect used oil back before i turn it into biodiesel.

3) fossil footprint: If i used nothing but biodiesel to operate (including generating my own electric) I would use up about a third of my biodiesel production.

4) Soil health and fertilizer: If I were to abstain completely from synthetic fertilizer, i estimate that a field might be used for grain crops somewhere between one year in three and one year in seven, depending on the particular field. The rest of the time i would have it in pasture. I will point out that it is possible to make your own fertilizer also, Ingraham has chapter and verse on composting and compost application, and the Rodale institute has some very long running programs. Oberlin college is going interesting work also.

5) I think animals are vital for a well functioning farm. Many ills of our industrial food system arise from the divorce of the farm from the animals.

sidd

Bruce Steele

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #135 on: July 28, 2017, 10:55:52 PM »
Sidd, Included with articles like the Wallace-Wells piece should be solutions . There are so many very brilliant people here on the forum but as it turns out not so many with working experiance in agricultural
solutions to a climate troubled world. You have far more experiance in agriculture than most people here and although from your posts it is obvious you are very well educated it may be your agricultural techniques that make your opinions relevant to those of us that didn't follow through on a path to higher education.
 Like I said up thread I have trouble gaining traction with people on why experimenting with zero ff farming is important.  If I keep coming back to you for your thoughts about ag it is because I value your opinion. I probably have a better idea about gallons of soy oil produced per acre, bio-diesel production per gallon of used oil and processing equipment required than most other readers here but if you could put some of those numbers down for others readers here to look at I am certain they would find the numbers and techniques interesting.

wili

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #136 on: July 29, 2017, 04:57:06 AM »
I second what Bruce said.

But I'll also point out that, when sidd said: "I think animals...", we should remember that humans are animals, too.  :D
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

6roucho

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #137 on: July 29, 2017, 06:55:00 PM »
Quote
You can find consensus in the war against climate change — as long as you don’t call it “climate change.”"

Then let's just call it what it is:  Global Warming.
Conservatives despise that equally. Perhaps The War on Leftwing, Liberal, Goddam Unamerican Heat.

AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #138 on: August 03, 2017, 04:08:58 PM »
The Huffington Post has run the following piece that elaborates on the Wallace-Wells article.  While this article paints a very disturbing picture of the future with continued high GHG emission; I firmly believe that when one considers the likelihood that the effective ECS this century is probably higher than Wallace-Wells assumes; and the fact that Wallace-Wells does not give much weight to the risk that the WAIS may well collapse this century; that Wallace-Wells is erring on the side of least drama:

Title: "Can Human Beings Survive The Impending Climate Crisis?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/can-humans-beings-survive-the-impending-climate-crisis_us_59829712e4b0396a95c874c5

Extract: "Although climate change may now rank alongside ISIS as the world’s most feared security threat according to a new Pew report, the horrors that global warming will unleash in the future, are far “worse than you think” warns David Wallace-Wells.
In his sobering piece in New York Magazine, he says that “even within the lifetime of a teenager today ... parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable.”"
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

Daniel B.

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #139 on: August 03, 2017, 08:47:50 PM »
Personally, I'd prefer to take people at their word.  If someone says that they think the NY Mag article is realistic, I accept that they really do think that.  If someone else says the article is excessively alarmist and unrealistic, I likewise accept that they're telling the truth as they see it.

I would tend to agree.  Mann was not the only scientists taking issue with the alarmist overtones.
Alexis Berg was more disapproving in his response.

"In addition, the article contains a number of claims that are factually wrong, and a number of claims that are, to my knowledge, not substantiated by research.

I was also concerned by the implied claim that this article, being written after interviews with many climate scientists, somehow reflects scientists’ true opinion about global warming. I don’t believe it does."

So was Pierre Friedlingstein:

"The article is very alarmist, making very strong statements with very little (if any) support. Implying that climate scientists support the article, which I find hard to believe.
Such article does not help at all. It’s just too easy to prove it wrong and hence imply that the entire climate change issue is exaggerated."

AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #140 on: August 04, 2017, 12:59:09 AM »
This reference finds that South Asia will experience deadly (within hours of exposure) heat waves with a few decades.  Soundly like Wallace-Wells had this part correct:

(02 Aug 2017), "Deadly heat waves projected in the densely populated agricultural regions of South AsiaScience Advances, Vol. 3, no. 8, e1603322, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1603322
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/8/e1603322

Abstract: "The risk associated with any climate change impact reflects intensity of natural hazard and level of human vulnerability. Previous work has shown that a wet-bulb temperature of 35°C can be considered an upper limit on human survivability. On the basis of an ensemble of high-resolution climate change simulations, we project that extremes of wet-bulb temperature in South Asia are likely to approach and, in a few locations, exceed this critical threshold by the late 21st century under the business-as-usual scenario of future greenhouse gas emissions. The most intense hazard from extreme future heat waves is concentrated around densely populated agricultural regions of the Ganges and Indus river basins. Climate change, without mitigation, presents a serious and unique risk in South Asia, a region inhabited by about one-fifth of the global human population, due to an unprecedented combination of severe natural hazard and acute vulnerability."

See also:

Title: "Climate change to cause humid heatwaves that will kill even healthy people"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/02/climate-change-to-cause-humid-heatwaves-that-will-kill-even-healthy-people

Extract: "If warming is not tackled, levels of humid heat that can kill within hours will affect millions across south Asia within decades, analysis finds"
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

Archimid

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #141 on: August 04, 2017, 02:03:21 AM »
What is worse to cry wolf when there isn't any or to not cry wolf when there is?

I think the first one is bad for your credibility, but second one will get people killed.

Is climate change a wolf? Everything I know tell me it is. The more I look into it, the more like a wolf it seems, but I can't be sure of it or prove it. So what do I do? Do I cry wolf or keep quiet and hope it wasn't a wolf after all?
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #142 on: August 04, 2017, 03:56:58 AM »
So what do I do? Do I cry wolf or keep quiet and hope it wasn't a wolf after all?

"Precautionary principle"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

Extract: "The precautionary principle (or precautionary approach) to risk management states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public, or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus (that the action or policy is not harmful), the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking that action."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #143 on: August 04, 2017, 04:21:27 AM »
Personally I like it when and if my understanding is somewhat off, on climate change. This is of course because I typically fall on the low-side of sea ice extent-area-volume projections. A case of One bad balances Another One. I find it easier to be (a bit) hopeful this way.

Any new news of the arctic methane?
« Last Edit: August 04, 2017, 04:27:03 AM by Pmt111500 »

AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #144 on: August 04, 2017, 05:01:04 AM »
Any new news of the arctic methane?
Maybe the Arctic's methane hydrate emissions from 12,000 years ago is a warning of what could happen in West Antarctica in a few decades:

Title: "Massive craters formed by methane blow-outs from the Arctic sea floor"

https://phys.org/news/2017-06-massive-craters-methane-blow-outs-arctic.html

Extract: "Even though the craters were formed some 12,000 years ago, methane is still leaking profusely from the craters. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and of major concern in our warming climate.

"The crater area was covered by a thick ice sheet during the last ice age, much as West Antarctica is today. As climate warmed, and the ice sheet collapsed, enormous amounts of methane were abruptly released. This created massive craters that are still actively seeping methane " says Karin Andreassen, first author of the study and professor at CAGE Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #145 on: August 04, 2017, 05:07:45 AM »
Assessing the potential risk for abrupt release of methane from marine hydrates beneath the WAIS (of which roughly ½ of its bed area has sediment suitable for containing hydrates), requires a plausible scenario.  In this regards, I provide the first two attached images that show:

(1) The elevation of the ice in the WAIS above sea level that if released abruptly by cliff failures could destabilize marine hydrate by abrupt depressurization, that could lead to a series of underwater landslides on the negative slope of the seafloor as the ground line progressively retreats;

(2) Sea passages way that could be progressively opened to allow relatively warm circumpolar deep water to circulate in the newly exposed West Antarctic seafloor, which could destabilized marine hydrates with heat.

(3) The potentially hundreds of meter of seafloor rebound that would both raise up and destabilize the geotechnical marine deposits, thus causing local destabilization areas.

The third image shows the depth to the MOHO beneath the West Antarctic indicating that large zones in this area have little or no lithosphere, which cause both high geothermal heat flux into the marine hydrates and also promotes both seismic and volcanic activity (with abrupt loss of ice) that could further destabilize the hydrates.

Lastly for this post, I note that the bottom zone of the marine ice sheet itself likely has insitu methane hydrates that could be abruptly transported to the atmosphere if/when the calved icebergs roll.
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

Pmt111500

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #146 on: August 04, 2017, 06:24:06 AM »
Thanks ASRL.

6roucho

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #147 on: August 04, 2017, 05:09:10 PM »
So what do I do? Do I cry wolf or keep quiet and hope it wasn't a wolf after all?

"Precautionary principle"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

Extract: "The precautionary principle (or precautionary approach) to risk management states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public, or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus (that the action or policy is not harmful), the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking that action."

Does that apply to the precautionary principal itself?

AbruptSLR

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #148 on: August 04, 2017, 06:02:59 PM »
Does that apply to the precautionary principal itself?

Your point could be taken to indicate that the climate change resistance is too lax in heralding all of the new jobs that they are creating:

Title: "Study: The fight against climate change added 41,000 jobs to the Inland economy"

http://www.pe.com/2017/08/03/whats-fighting-climate-change-worth-to-the-inland-empire-9-1-billion-a-new-study-finds/
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

Daniel B.

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Re: "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough"
« Reply #149 on: August 04, 2017, 06:11:13 PM »
So what do I do? Do I cry wolf or keep quiet and hope it wasn't a wolf after all?

"Precautionary principle"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

Extract: "The precautionary principle (or precautionary approach) to risk management states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public, or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus (that the action or policy is not harmful), the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking that action."

Does that apply to the precautionary principal itself?

This is similar to the medical "do no harm" principle.  In other words, any action taken should not cause more harm than the condition at hand.