
Earth may temporarily pass dangerous 1.5 C warming limit by 2024 - Brajeshwar
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-earth-temporarily-dangerous-limit-major.html
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tda
I think we as humanity will just keep on denying this is happening or that
something can be done about it, until in a few (?) decades we'll agree that
we're f*cked and that it is all to late and we must blame the people of the
past for getting us there. That way we are never personally responsible, but
can always look at someone else/some other time.

~~~
nicbou
I feel that on a personal level. You can stop flying, reduce your consumption,
sort your trash like your life depends on it etc, only for your next door
neighbour to undo all of your work.

That's just in Central Europe, where people can afford to care. Go a little
further out and you'll see really discouraging scenes. There are many
countries where people drive the cars that failed the emissions test in
Germany, with the German decals still on them. Recycling does not exist there.
You can find towns by the plumes of smoke coming from their burning trash.

With more and more people gaining access to a certain living standard, I feel
like it's a lost battle. There will be more cars, more consumption. Combine
that with the other economical ills of this world, and I really doubt any
vanguard efforts will see a reward.

~~~
tuatoru
Still, your own carbon emissions are reduced significantly if you never fly or
drive or eat meat.

Individually we can only be examples for people to copy.

~~~
Pfhreak
We can also organize as individuals, become single issue voters, send demands
to our politicians at the local, state, and federal level.

Maybe it takes too long, but at least it's something besides just individually
doing the right thing.

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changoplatanero
Imagine if the entire developed world suddenly magically disappeared so that
no further emissions happened from that population. Would the existing co2 in
the atmostphere still be enough to cause 2 degrees of warming?

~~~
nostrademons
Most likely yes - there are a bunch of feedback loops in climate that continue
even if the initial source of warming is removed.

The most likely scenario that would result in the "entire developed world
suddenly magically disappeared" is a nuclear winter, though. Such an event
would drop global temperatures by a lot more than 2 C, nullifying the problem.

~~~
changoplatanero
that's why i said "magically disappeared" instead of "blew itself up with
nuclear weapons" :)

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fuzzybear3965
I just saw a Michael Moore-affiliated documentary (directed and hosted by some
guy I've never seen before - Jeff Gibbs) . It might only be a bunch of hype.
But, it drew attention to a huge source of renewable energy that I've never
heard of before: biomass plants. One of the theses of this documentary is that
biomass plants mainly run off of forested timber, so the use of these power
plants (as a primary renewable energy resource in Germany and seemingly
Michigan) is far from green/renewable.

Is this a "haters gonna hate" kind of situation or are biomass plants
legitimately an evil in disguise?

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moksly
A large chunk of the Danish “green/renewable” energy comes from biomass plants
when the wind isn’t blowing. So this is a debate we’re currently having, and
it’s basically looking more and more like a legislative hack.

Biomass plants burn biomass instead of fossil fuels. We’re currently burning a
lot of wood by-products from the Estonian lumber (timber?) industry.

I’m not big on the science, and I hope someone can put it better, but the
arguing, as I understand it, goes something like: “the trees have absorbed
CO2, so burning them is CO2 neutral”, but it’s not like burning wood stuff
doesn’t release CO2.

~~~
abhiyerra
I guess the main difference would be:

1\. burning fossil fuel. Pulling carbon from within the earth and putting the
CO2 in the air. 2\. biomass burning. Burning Carbon that is above ground and
putting in the air.

I think 1+2=bad, 2 by itself I don’t think is bad basically what the Native
Americans used to do to maintain forests before Europeans. However, we don’t
live in a world where we are just doing #2.

~~~
moksly
That’s not really how it goes though. We’re using it to make our numbers
pretty so we meet the EU and Paris agreements, but it doesn’t actually make us
a renewable country, and once the goals are met, political focus will go
elsewhere.

It could be worse, sure, but that’s not an excuse for not doing better.

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tylerjwilk00
The timing of the Fukushima nuclear disaster was so unfortunate.

~~~
0-_-0
The reaction to it was even more unfortunate

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auganov
As per UAH we're just about on par with the 1998/1999 peak. Back then it was
supposed to keep going up too, but took an almost 20 year break for whatever
reason.

[https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-
content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_...](https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-
content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_August_2020_v6.jpg)

~~~
fallingfrog
First off, the trend line on that graph is clearly upwards. You can’t cherry
pick one outlier data point as the starting point and then say that anything
below that point doesn’t matter. This is clearly trolling behavior at best.
Secondly, I’m not sure where you found this graph but it’s clearly been chosen
specifically because of the height of the 1998 outlier. A graph including the
whole earth and all data available does not show the same strong peak. So this
is again, prevarication at best.

~~~
auganov
> First off, the trend line on that graph is clearly upwards. You can’t cherry
> pick one outlier data point as the starting point and then say that anything
> below that point doesn’t matter.

And where did I claim that?

Both RSS and UAH show this same peak. This is a well known fact to anybody
who's following satellite temperature measurements.

The graph starts in 79 because UAH didn't exist before that time.

> A graph including the whole earth and all data available does not show the
> same strong peak.

You may mean giss which is a different measurement method based on ground
measurement stations, not the "whole earth". It shows a less pronounced peak,
yes.

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xwdv
At what point do we just accept the world is coming to an end and do nothing?

~~~
tuatoru
The world will go on.

The question is, what kind of life do you want your children/nieces and
nephews to live in fifty years' time?

We're heading for a world in which rich countries will be severely tested by
hundreds of millions of wannabe climate migrants, while coping with the
aftermath of repeated storms* and recurrent shortages of food and other
ncecessities.

(On the up side, global population is going to peak soon.)

Any action helps make things that much less bad in fifty years.

* firestorms, windstorms, rainstorms, seastorms, ...

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tuatoru
Disappointing that the piece finished with "urgent action can change trends".

No, it can't. Urgent _inaction_ can change trends, though. Stop mining coal.
Stop making cement. Stop refining oil and gas. Stop eating meat.

