
July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa - MarkEthan
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/20/sunday-review/climate-change-hot-future.html?_r=1
======
harryh
Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some
sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want
to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich
enough to do so you'll never stop them.

The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green
energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

~~~
snarfy
There is another solution: less people.

~~~
lallysingh
Populations past a certain level of prosperity for a generation or two do seem
to drop reproductive rates. Perhaps the answer here is higher educational
costs to discourage people from having many kids, and lots of alternative
activities instead (Pokemon)?

~~~
adrenalinelol
Increase college tuition (even more?) with the hopes of stemming population
growth? You know the majority of the planet doesn't actually attend college as
is already?

------
codecamper
Solar panels now sell for about 45c a watt out of China. Cost to create is
around 36c / watt.

This allows deployments such as in Chile & Dubai where the cost/kwh is 3 cents
& below.

This now cheaper than coal, without subsidy.

Remove the subsidies that oil, gas & coal receive, and you will witness a new
day.

Only problem for solar right now is over supply caused by a sudden drop in
demand. China reduced its subsidy a bit. Also the US extended subsidy for 5
years, which is great, but it has removed the urgency to complete utility
scale solar plants before subsidy cutoff, causing the utilities to sit it out
& wait.

Better act soon! (250 years to clear CO2 from atmosphere, feedback loops only
now being discovered.)

~~~
fratlas
Also the power grid cannot accommodate in it's current form. Older substations
struggle to do with the load fluctuations that are caused by solar panels,
which is why they are discouraging them in Hawaii. A huge investment would be
required to upgrade these substations. But yes, soon solar will be cheaper
than coal.

~~~
codecamper
well the grid needs to be upgraded. Totally ridiculous that HI discourages
residential PV.

~~~
kalleboo
Those upgrades cost money. And the main reason people install PV is so they
don't have to pay the power company.

------
sevenless
These maps are based on emission trends continuing, assuming no political
action will be taken. But wouldn't a hotter world tend to _exacerbate_
emission trends, with human needs for AC and desalination rising, plus forest
fires? Moreover, there might be some tipping point for large scale methane
release. The 'tail risk' to global warming has appreciable density a long way
out.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I'm not sure. Many of the countries with the largest emissions per capita are
in regions where houses are heated in the winter and cooled in the summer.

Given that indoor temperature is ~ 20C, the ∆T for heating can be much greater
than for cooling, since cold outdoor temp can easily go as low as -20C, while
really hot weather won't go much above 40C.

Thus, in a warmer climate where you need less heating in winter and more
cooling in summer, you might actually end up using less total power for AC.

~~~
ZenoArrow
I'm not sure there's a 'need' for AC in homes, at least not for new builds.
Would recommend taking a look at the work of the Passivhaus Institute:

[http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/](http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house)

~~~
neuromancer2701
Compressed earth brick is pretty amazing. The whole house become a water vapor
trap and the house cools itself as the heat of the day increases. Granted then
you need to cool the house at night to refresh the thermal mass.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuQB3x4ZNeA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuQB3x4ZNeA)

------
spdustin
I've come to the (I feel) inevitable conclusion that we are already well and
truly fucked. I will still do what I can to slow the inexorable slide into
worldwide famine, war and anarchy, in the hopes that the majority of my
children's lives will be made incrementally better, should they choose to
remain on this planet (and, it is assumed, that they may actually have a
choice, but there's no way I can know).

We're on the wrong side of the story arc here. It's too late. The damage has
been done, and it will continue to snowball even if we stop putting carbon (as
both CO2 and methane) into the atmosphere today. Anyone who cooks can
instinctively understand how "carryover heat" works - the temperature gradient
hasn't yet finished equalizing, the latent energy (and, for that matter, the
latent GH gasses) stored in the oceans and, indeed, the land itself hasn't yet
made its full effects felt, and we've successfully argued and argued and
argued about it without actually doing _anything_ substantial enough to make a
meaningful difference.

But that sort of hopeless talk makes me sound like a crackpot, and I've typed
this sort of message into many a text field on the Internet over the past year
before deleting it, or pressing cancel, or closing the browser tab. But today,
in a moment of vulnerability, or for another reason I can't hope to know,
something is telling me to press "submit".

~~~
ldonley
This is tangential to your point about remaining on this planet, but it is
much easier to survive on our planet, polluted or not, than it is to setup
shop on a different planet.

I am fully in agreement with your view on how messed up things are on our
planet due to human action. I just felt compelled to point out that any
adjustments to be made on other planets can be done here. Can't breath on
mars? Build a dome and generate air into it. The same thing could be done on
Earth if the situation was bad enough. Can't survive on the surface of Venus
due to hot and thick atmosphere? Live floating in the clouds. We could do the
same on Earth.

The process of getting to another planet is so infeasible at this point and
probably will be for a long time yet. We can hope, but I like to play devil's
advocate. Also, Human's are very good at adapting and I'm sure the will to
survive will keep our species alive even if pollution degrades our environment
to the point of toxicity.

~~~
spdustin
I guess my line of thought on my kids leaving this world for another has an
additional assumption: that they, and the others who would do so, would leave
to escape not just the planet's climate, but the people who screwed it up for
them to begin with.

~~~
savanaly
Don't you think that the problems with the environment sort of stem most
significantly from emergent social phenomena analogous to (but not exactly the
same as) such things as tragedy of the commons? It's not like this version of
the human race just got lucky and got all the bad 'uns. Humans are humans, no
point in bemoaning reality. But the social structures are in a sense an
equally root cause.

~~~
spdustin
I would say, yes, the economic theory of the "tragedy of the commons" is a
major part of the issue. Good thing that the modern counterparts to those
theorists have come to understand that the solution to the tragedy of the
commons is to ensure that the costs of the consumption are borne by the
consumer.

Regulation, societal norms drafted from the start to ensure transparency, and
the "greater good" spirit that, one could easily argue, would be prevalent in
those who would choose to risk their lives to leave this rock behind... all
those things would form the framework by which our offspring would ensure that
they're capable of learning from the mistakes of their forebears.

I believe that, as a race, we're too late to _undo_ the damage we've done to
our environment. The patient (our way of life) is terminal, we can only hope
to make ourselves comfortable in our waning years without unnecessarily
spreading the disease.

But, as cliché as it sounds, I am not hopeless, and I simply cannot allow
myself to believe that future generations would do the same thing if they had
another planet - or even this one - to start over again. I _MUST_ believe that
part of the human condition includes _learning from and not repeating the
mistakes that cost billions of lives_.

------
bjourne
Anyone else who feel that the climate-related news are getting very scary? If
for every month for the last year, there was a new sprinter breaking the last
months world Record in 100 meters you'd know something was fishy. Like some
kind of incredibly potent anabolic steroid runners were ingesting. With new
and improved versions of that steroid being released every few months...

~~~
kleiba
I would take it with a grain of salt. In Germany, we had warm summers in
recent years, but this year's July has generally been cold and very rainy.

~~~
acomjean
climate is long term, weather is short term[1]. Its a subtle difference and
often confused, especially if english isn't your first language.

[1][http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_wea...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html)

~~~
ThomPete
What on earth does language have to do with it?

Other countries write about climate change too :)

~~~
Klathmon
Because to a non-native speaker the 2 words can be confused as synonyms.

Hell I didn't even know there was a distinct difference between the 2 words
until just now (and i've been speaking english my whole life), and I had just
assumed that these kinds of discussions were talking about the "long term"
data.

~~~
konschubert
Well, in German

climate = Klima

weather = Wetter

So, I really don't think that the confusion can be excused by language in this
case :)

~~~
lintiness
strange, it never rained once when i was there, and i was there for at least 3
days.

------
davidf18
There is much we can do in the US to decrease air pollution within a very
short time. These reductions also contribute to lowering asthmatic episodes
and hospitalizations and various forms of heart disease in the elderly,
especially women.

1\. As of a few years ago, 10% of the 450 coal powered electric power plants
produced half the air pollution by coal powered plants (according to an
Environmental Pollution Agency report). Take the top 45 polluters off line.
The Obama administration is already to shut down some of these plants.

2\. Many buildings in the Northeast and Midwest burn old #6 and #4 fuel oils
for heat during the winter which are very polluting. New York City, where I
live, has now banned the dirtier #6 oils, but politics has intervened and
significantly delayed the banning of #4 oil. But other cities should ban the
burning of these dirtier fuel oils.

The shutting down of the top 45 polluting coal powered electric plants and the
banning of #6 and #4 fuel oils for heating buildings would not be hard to do
and would make a significant difference to reducing air pollution.

------
triangleman
El Nino + urban heat island effect. According to satellites, July 2016 is the
2nd hottest July since the 70's when satellite records began. The hottest is
July 1998, also El Nino.

Take a look at weather stations that have been situated in the same place for
100 or more years, far from cities: [http://www.john-
daly.com/stations/stations.htm](http://www.john-
daly.com/stations/stations.htm)

~~~
cromulent
The scientists been taking the heat island effect into account the whole time.
See box 2.1 here, it explains it quite well:

[http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climat...](http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/052.htm#2221)

In relation to the El Nino, sure, it is a factor in the heat every 5-7 years
or so, including last year, but it doesn't explain the trend.

------
kpwagner
Sergey Brin made a statement regarding global warming: something like, "I'm
not worried about it. We can put solar-powered carbon scrubbers in the deserts
of the world and essentially fix the problem with an investment in the tens of
billions (relatively small)."

I forget where I heard this and wasn't able to dig up a source. I think it was
a Jason Calacanis podcast or video of an interview. Either way it was
secondary information. Bad sourcing, I know--sorry.

I agree with many who suggest reducing consumption is a risky gambit at best.
How practical are counter-measures? Can we just geo-engineer our way out of
it?

~~~
ak217
Brin has the right idea. The only thing that will realistically help - aside
from massive reforestation efforts or maybe bioengineered algae - is a mass-
produced, maintenance-free solid-state artificial photosynthesis module. The
problem is, very few people - almost all academics - have even been thinking
about such a thing, much less engineering it. So there's enormous amounts of
work to do.

------
throwanem
It never ceases to bewilder me that nuclear power isn't taken seriously as a
replacement for fossil-burning baseload generation.

~~~
Pitarou
Agreed. We no longer have the luxury of being prissy about ionising radiation.

~~~
pjc50
Do we have the luxury of giving up multiple hundreds of square kilometers for
the exclusion zones if there is a failure, though?

And the technology doesn't scale well. Few big plants that take ages to build,
compared to panels on every roof and turbines put up one by one.

~~~
VLM
Isn't that extremely small area compared to submerged coastline and harbors
and coastal cities?

Some industrial processes and some datacenter services require baseload power.
"most" power demand doesn't truly require baseload. Conveniently they require
approx no people. Go build the plants and the data centers and the aluminum
refineries in the desert next to the a-bomb test sites and no one will notice
or care.

As an example my cheap old refrigerator "needs" 24x7 power but with better
insulation and higher thermal mass it could trivially run once a day, or even
less, at peak solar production.

Another example is culturally we "need" to have retail and service businesses
open during the lowest solar generation times of the day, but that cultural
demand has no technological basis. There are cultural and economic reasons
walmart can't replace all its gigawatts of light bulbs with skylights but no
technological reasons.

Another cultural example is there's no reason we "have to" have millions of
people living in deserts, and no matter how much environmental damage it
causes we're not going to depopulate the West USA down to a sustainable level
for purely political and cultural reasons. Ditto the far south. We as a
culture have decided no level of environmental damage is too large to stop
providing water and air conditioning for millions to live in historically
unlivable climates, even if there's plenty of land in livable climates. In
that way, ionizing radiation doesn't matter any more than the destruction of
the Colorado River matters, for example.

~~~
pjc50
The US might have plenty of desert, but you need rather a lot of cool water to
run a nuclear plant, which is why they're often built on coasts.

And what of other places? France has a decent set of nuclear reactors, but
there aren't really uninhabited areas in Europe to put more in. Only
relatively less populated areas. The UK is currently struggling to get one off
the ground and the economics of it look terrible.

~~~
white-flame
The Palo Verde nuclear generating station is the largest nuclear reactor in
the US, and possibly in the western hemisphere. It is located in the US
desert, an hour out of town pretty much in the middle of nowhere & nothing.

~~~
pjc50
Wikipedia tells me they have a clever solution:

"The facility evaporates water from the treated sewage of several nearby
municipalities to meet its cooling needs. 20 billion US gallons (76,000,000
m³) of treated water are evaporated each year."

Interesting read, I'd never heard of Palo Verde.

------
blondie9x
We all know by now CO2 and CH4 leads to a warmer planet. We also know what's
driving greenhouse gas levels to rise across Earth. Contributors are
deforestation, intensive animal farming, and primarily the combustion of
carbon fossil fuels like coal, tar sands, oil, natural gas etc. But here is
the underlying problem, despite us knowing how bad things are, (97+% of
scientists who study this field agree we are causing the planet's climate to
shift away from the temperate climate we thrived in) not enough is being done
at present to truly solve the problem.

What really is disheartening and what no one in the media and government is
talking about is how in 2015 CO2 levels rose by the largest amount in human
recorded history. 3.05 PPM
[http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html](http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html)
We are being lied to and mislead by our governments that uniform actions are
being performed to save the planet for the future of man. Vested interests in
the fossil fuel industry continue to drive climate change. Yes, solar and wind
energy is starting to become incredibly efficient and cheap but not enough of
it is coming online in proportion to fossil fuel burning that persists and is
also installed annually. If we do not rally against it, our ability to live on
this planet is at stake. The lives of our posterity are also at risk because
of the burning. It will not be until we take extreme actions not on a country
level but as humanity together that we will slow the burning and save
ourselves.

What are these actions you might ask that will actually be effective? These
can range from banning fossil fuels entirely, global carbon pricing system,
banning deforestation, changing human diets, extreme uniform investment in
renewable energy and potentially fourth generation nuclear reactors, more
funding for developing nations to install alternative energy sources, and to
shift the transportation grid towards sustainability.

~~~
rybosome
The problem is that not enough people care. I've tried bringing it up with
many of my friends. Responses include:

"We can't risk damaging the economy"

"The biggest priority in this country should be the mistreatment of
minorities, you wouldn't care so much about the environment if you weren't
white"

"It's not a big deal, we will just relocate cities when flooding happens"

"Scientists are wrong plenty of times"

...and on and on. Nobody really takes it seriously that we could be destroying
the conditions which allow human life to exist on this planet. They are
shielded by a raft of excuses, the issues which they are most concerned with,
and endless high-budget entertainment.

Unless there is a technological miracle that makes all of this simple, I
believe that we are (in the words of another commenter) well and truly fucked.

------
bcarrell
I own a home built in the 1960s in the northeast US. My home (like many
others, I'm sure) uses an oil-fired boiler to provide heating and hot water. I
don't have gas lines to my house. The gas company won't run them unless I pay
~$5,000 for them to do so. Even if my home used natural gas instead of oil, I
feel like it's not really solving the problem.

What are my options here? Is solar viable? What can _I_ reasonably do to
improve consumption? I use only LED lighting, eat meat rarely, use a
programmable thermostat, have new windows/doors, etc. Improving the situation
seems either not economically viable for most people or an incremental
improvement. Just wait?

~~~
epistasis
Take a hard look at the numbers. For example, livestock are responsible for
3.1% of US co2 equivalent warming (Wikipedia citing the US EPA), so going from
average meat consumption to no meat consumption isn't a huge impact, but it's
something.

$5k is about a dollar a day for 13 years; switching to natural gas is about
25% more efficient than fuel oil, co2-wise. Depending on how much heating you
need that 25% could be vastly more impactful than a life without meat. Also,
look into electric heating, depending on your electric supply that could be
vastly more carbon efficient.

Also, around the house efficiency in the form of insulation and modern
appliances is something that's usually super cost effective and carbon
effective on a house from the 60s. It again will require up-front capital but
is almost always a super smart move to do as soon as possible.

In some ways it's easier to be super self sacrificial and not eat meat, but
it's important to look at the big picture. It really is about the numbers
here; personal purity does nobody any good. Except on the political side;
become a vocal single issue voter and never vote for a politician that doesn't
have climate change part of their platform, and the same goes for political
parties. Ultimately putting in mile carbon taxes will shift the market to do
the right thing, but the politics make this impossible. Yes anti-economical
too, negative externalities must be addressed by societal means, just like
liabilities must be addressed through societal means.

~~~
dbdr
> livestock are responsible for 3.1% of US co2 equivalent warming (Wikipedia
> citing the US EPA)

The same Wikipedia article also mentions FAO studies giving 14.5% and 18%
globally. I wonder what explains the difference. Methodology? Ignoring the
contribution of imports? Much higher emissions in the US compared to the world
in other areas reducing the relative but not the absolute impact of livestock?

In any case meat and animal products seem very relevant to GHG emissions
worldwide, and they might be in the US once you reduce other waste. But it's
indeed a good idea to focus on the major contributors and low-hanging fruits
first.

------
arethuza
Found this link with similar maps for Europe:

[http://grist.org/climate-energy/the-16-scariest-maps-from-
th...](http://grist.org/climate-energy/the-16-scariest-maps-from-the-e-u-s-
massive-new-climate-change-report/)

NB from 2012.

Interesting that it actually predicts that the UK will have a distinct benefit
from warming when it comes to agricultural productivity.

------
Karellen
Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy also has a good (if now depressingly repetetive)
take on it[0].

[0]
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/08/16/july_201...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/08/16/july_2016_was_the_hottest_july_on_record.html)

------
aangjie
This graphic could've used a Brett victor style tangle.js based simulation
model. Then we could play around with it assuming future emission rates going
down or up etc..
[http://worrydream.com/Tangle/](http://worrydream.com/Tangle/)

------
cconcepts
I initially thought this was a NYTimes self promotion piece. As in "Think
NYTimes is hot right now? Just Wait".

~~~
gengkev
So did I. Why was the article title prefixed with "NYTimes:"? I haven't seen
that before on this site.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Two weeks from now: "August was hottest month ever recorded, according to
NASA."

------
brooklyndavs
I'm just a software developer with a side interest in climate science so
please excuse any ignorance on this topic. What I find troubling is it seems,
from what I have read, our climate models currently have a poor handle on co2
and methane feedbacks, both positive and negative. For example there seems to
be a general scientific consensus that NOx from industrial sources (mostly
coal power plants) is having some cooling effect. When these are removed,
which will happen slowly but steadily as coal is retired, there will be a
warming response but it is not clear how much this response will be.
Similarly, you have positive feedbacks coming into place like the decline of
sea ice in the arctic, less forests and more combustion of those forests, and
co2/methane releases from permafrost. These are other feedbacks are known but
nothing I have read has convinced me we have a full scientific understanding
of the impact that these feedbacks will have.

Thats why like others in this thread I feel rather hopeless about humanity
ever getting global warming under control. We of course have the problem of
humanity to continue putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere via our
economic activity. This of course is co2 but also methane and HFCs. The
challenge of bringing these down to safe levels while keeping not only the
standard of living we enjoy currently in the west but also bringing billions
more people into the middle class world wide is impossible with existing
technology and incredibly hard with emerging technology. To get to a carbon
neutral prosperous, middle class society for everyone on the planet will take
many decades. If we ever get to that point I'm afraid feedbacks and built in
system inertia will be so strong that the planet will keep on warming for
1,000s of years despite our best efforts.

TL;DR I think we as humans really screwed this up and I don't have much hope
of us collectively being able to fix it.

------
artursapek
I didn't know if it was just because I now have a 2 year old, but New York
summers have definitely seemed harder to deal with each year I've lived here.

Is there a commonly accepted minimum temperature difference threshold that is
perceivable by humans? E.g., if summer in 2016 was hotter than 2015 by X, I
will notice?

~~~
dsr_
Humans are lousy at comparing temperature differences over the course of a
year. What we remember are extreme events: four years ago we had deep snow all
winter, last year I only had to shovel twice. Remember when we didn't turn on
the A/C except for one week in August?

------
novalis78
and here we are, still without any thorium reactor anywhere on the planet in
operation.

------
Zigurd
The answer will probably be complex and unpleasant: We'll get serious climate
disruptions before people get serious. We'll need to choose to deliberately
forego energy sources, and energy is tightly linked to economic growth. The
nuclear proponents will have to demonstrate that nuclear power can be
economical and safe. If it is not economical, as it has not been so far, it is
useless.

If we are past the point of preventing large scale calamity, geoengineering
will probably have to be part of the solution. It's very risky, not least
because it will lead to complacency if it works at all.

------
chukye
OK, but... any ideas how can we solve that?

~~~
mesmerizingsnow
Make telecommuting and carpooling/ridesharing the new normal.

Less commutes == less emissions.

~~~
mikeash
If you somehow cut personal transportation of all kinds to zero in the US,
you'd cut total GHG emissions by about 13%. Nothing to sneeze at, but it won't
solve the problem by a long shot.

------
misja111
So 14 of the 15 hottest years ever have taken place since 2000. I'm wondering,
if this is the result of global heating due to emissions, why do we see so
many new record highs only now? The industrial revolution has been going on
already for over 150 years. Why were there so few records broken in, say, 1980
- 1996, and so many in 2000 - 2016?

~~~
pjc50
I think you're misunderstanding the arithmetic. Take a look at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_recor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record#/media/File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly.svg)

The Nth "hottest years" are relative to the present day. So in the graph, it
looks like 1981 would have been a record hot year - but now it's only the 30th
(or whatever) hottest year.

If the graph were a completely smooth upward-sloping line, then you'd expect
that 15 of the 15 hottest years would have been since 2000.

~~~
misja111
Thanks for the chart. To me it still seems like we are missing something. If
you look at the period of 1940 - 1980, then there was not really an upward or
downward trend. But in the 36 years after 1980, the global temperature has
been going up like crazy. Should all of that be attributed to statistical
noise? To me it looks like some new factor has started to influence the
climate in the recent years, whatever that factor may be.

~~~
pjc50
Rather than eyeballing it, why not do a proper regression?

To me, it looks like a line going up from 1900 with a bump in 1940. But you
don't have to take my word for it, there's piles and piles of data out there.

~~~
misja111
I'm not denying that the world has been heating up since 1900. I'm saying that
during the last ca. 36 years it is suddenly going very much faster than it did
before.

~~~
mikeash
World CO2 emissions in 2014 were about 9.8 gigatonnes. The current
concentration of atmospheric CO2 is about 400 parts per million. In 1980, the
relevant figures were about 5.3 gigatonnes and 340ppm.

We've got the accelerator to the floor. It's no wonder that we're getting all
the speeding tickets now.

------
tombert
The part I find especially frustrating is that, on average, a New Yorker has a
lower carbon footprint than the typical American, probably due to the heavy
use of the train.

So even when I do the (I think) eco-friendly thing by not having a car and
using public transit, I'm still being punished for what the rest of the US
(and the rest of the world) does.

~~~
harryh
Even with your slightly lower footprint due to not owning a car you still have
a much larger footprint than the world mean. Probably 2-3x. So there are
billions of people being "punished" for what you're doing.

~~~
tombert
Well, considering that I get my power from a combination of Nuclear and wind
power, I doubt that I give a particularly high _carbon_ footprint.

But you're not wrong, I almost certainly have a higher footprint than most of
the third world.

I guess what I was getting at is that I think the levels New York has are
substantially more _sustainable_ than the rest of the US. Sorry for the
confusion.

~~~
yread
I would guess your footprint is more increased by getting all kinds of stuff
(you don't really need). And the stuff being shipped across half the globe.

~~~
tombert
That's a fair point and I'll admit I hadn't considered that.

Conceivably, we could make electric (or something) transportation systems that
can travel across the world and not produce and CO2, but we certainly haven't
gotten there yet.

~~~
sanxiyn
Marine transport is incredibly efficient. Total marine transport accounts for
~2% of global CO2 emission. It would be nice to have, but definitely a low
priority.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shippi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shipping)

------
return0
As someone who does not tolerate heat well, i can confirm. And it isn't over
yet.

------
kelvin0
Well clearly it has nothing to do with man-made pollution, it's nature taking
it's course and these rampant wildfires. Oh wait, what causes the wildfires
you ask? :-)

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mfer
Not to negate the issue at hand, which is important, there there's an
interesting note on perception here.

"ever recorded" is used but how long have we been recording? The last study I
checked on that made a claim like this was about 100 years. "ever recorded"
sounds more sensational.

In any case, how we treat our planet... our ecosystem... is important. Seeing
it go downhill is saddening and motivating. Glad to see things pointing out
the change, its direction, and possible impact.

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izzydata
No wonder my electricity bill was so insane. Maybe this winter will be the
coldest winter ever recorded.

~~~
undersuit
It could be the hottest January on record. Seeing as half the world is
experiencing winter right now, what do you think will happen to global
temperatures when the southern hemisphere experiences their summer?

~~~
flukus
Not much, the southern hemisphere has a lot more water than land, leveling out
the temperature. Records are created or not based off what happens in the
northern hemisphere.

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elcct
I planted palm trees and bananas in my London garden to reflect that :)

------
p4wnc6
I took off all my clothes.

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webXL
Where, New York Times?

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pedro2
Interesting.

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staticelf
I am lucky I live in the northen parts of Europe. I do not wish to live in
America in ~50-100 years from now since there is so much guns and other
weapons easily available.

People who care about their childrens future should start planning now. I
think when the shit hits the fan it will hit hard and fast.

~~~
sevenless
> People who care about their childrens future should start planning now.

If you believe this, wouldn't the ethical thing be to not have kids?

Besides, global warming-derived refugee flows into Europe could well put it in
a much worse position than the US.

~~~
goodcanadian
_If you believe this, wouldn 't the ethical thing be to not have kids?_

I see this over and over . . . If you don't have kids, who exactly are you
saving the world for?

~~~
davidy123
> I see this over and over . . . If you don't have kids, who exactly are you
> saving the world for?

The billions of people (including kids) who already exist. Whether through
adoption or supporting better general social programs. Clearly if that were
the focus and the way humans thought the world would be a better place. But of
course it's wishful thinking and people have every right to have and enjoy
their own children.

~~~
davidy123
Holy downvoting. Why?

------
gadders
It looks like the actual increase was minimal and within the margin of error:

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced
this week that according to their calculations, July 2015 was the hottest
month since instrumental records began in 1880. NOAA says that the record was
set by eight one-hundredths of a degree Celsius over that set in July 1998.
NASA calculates that July 2015 beat what they assert was the previous warmest
month (July 2011) by two one-hundredths of a degree. But government
spokespeople rarely mention the inconvenient fact that these records are being
set by less than the uncertainty in the statistics. NOAA claims an uncertainty
of 14 one-hundredths of a degree in its temperature averages, or near twice
the amount by which they say the record was set. NASA says that their data is
typically accurate to one tenth of a degree, five times the amount by which
their new record was set.

[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/23/tom-
harris-g...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/23/tom-harris-
global-warming-deceptive-temperature-re/)

~~~
mikeash
Are we supposed to ignore the established long-term warming trend just because
the records now being set aren't sufficiently beyond the ones from one
anomalous year?

