
A giant heat dome over Alaska is set to threaten all-time temperature records - pseudolus
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/07/03/giant-heat-dome-over-alaska-is-set-threaten-all-time-temperature-records/
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rficcaglia
I am currently in Alaska between 2 raging fires (Swan Lake Fire, and one near
Fairbanks). Temperatures in Denali Park and Anchorage peaked at 86. I casually
surveyed every AK resident I met about their views on climate change and I
heard several responses (clearly not scientific). Universally no one denied
climate change was occurring. They enumerated examples without qualification.
(Less snow, fewer bears, more fires, severe summer heat). I have no data
(didn’t ask) about political persuasions. Pretty random sample since we
weren’t on touristy cruises...several low paid workers and several college
grads:

* “climate has been changing since the last ice age, nothing we can do about it”

* “it’s been great, we have had so much fun enjoying the lake [water sports, swimming, etc]...it’s really not anything to worry about”

* “the lower 48 just likes to get into everybody’s business”

* “sure we might be causing it but what the hell, it’s ours to use it [the planet? Resources?] while we can”

* “it hasn’t been that bad for more than a couple years so I don’t see why it won’t change back to the way it was or even better”

* “yeah it’s been bad, I’m planning to leave”

* “too many people that’s what causes it”

* “we’ll adapt”

Overall having seen AK first hand in 1982, 1992 and now, it is striking how
much has changed. Huge amount of development, wildlife much more scarce,
pollution EVERYWHERE.

Really quite depressing.

That said, I have to take lumps for burning fossil fuels to come here, and
while driving, so I cant throw stones.

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empath75
We’re so fucked and nobody is doing anything about it. We’re going _backwards_
actually increasing emissions. even the people who most want to do things are
proposing solutions that barely make a dent in the problem. We need to impose
draconian carbon taxes worldwide immediately if we want to have any hope of
stopping this.

~~~
mdorazio
You're basically saying we should impose a massive global economic punch in
the face, which is just never going to happen. That's the issue with climate
change - making any kind of real impact requires a large, sustained, and
_global_ effort from governments on a scale that I don't think has ever
happened in human history. In my opinion, it's far too late for prevention and
the real tragedy is that we aren't spending more time and resources on looking
at ways to counteract climate change. By the time things get really bad and
people are starving from mass crop failures, we won't have the technology
and/or knowledge of downstream impacts to be able to possibly fix things.

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mynameishere
I should have heard this already, but why exactly would there be "crop
failures" rather than "massive increases in agricultural production" which
would seem to be the actual effect of warmth and more C02?

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paragraft
Water availability and weather events damaging crops I think are the big
dangers.

Greater variation in weather events isn't good for agriculture in either
direction. Flooding at one end (like the midwest US got hit with badly this
year), or drought at the other. In between there's the increased occurrence of
sudden events like hailstorms, wildfires.

Areas with good aquifers presently find themselves with a decent buffer
against drought, but there's a worldwide phenomenon of aquifer consumers
overdrawing and proving unable to properly regulate sustainable access to
those, let alone factoring in the changing supply rate to said aquifers. E.g,
if your aquifers are snow-fed, but the winter snowfall is gradually waning up
in the mountains, then what used to be sustainable could "suddenly" run dry.
The Yemen water crisis is a good example of this (aided by overconsumption for
growing khat), but we've seen the same coordinated action problems even in
wealthy democracies like California.

There's also other risks from heat stress (some crops affected by this more
than others), and also secondary risks, e.g a lot of these same stresses (plus
all the other stresses of modernity) on pollinators like bees.

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anigbrowl
I said the other day that it's time to stop having conversations with climate
denialists.

By denialist, I mean someone whose goal is is the establishment of a counter-
narrative to the mainstream view of the causes, risks, and imminence of global
climate change. Some argue that such discrimination will hinder sincere
skepticism and innocent inquiry, but neither scenario seems likely to me.

Sincere skepticism is easy: simply respect the standards of the discipline, by
arguing 'I disbelieve [scope of disputed phenomenon] for [reasons], which I
have detailed in article at [journal or preprint]' and exhibiting a baseline
level of respect and the same sort of good faith assumptions about others that
one hopes to receive for oneself.

Likewise, sincere inquiry can proceed along lines like 'I don't understand
[phenomenon], can you explain as I were in [grade/ college/ graduate school]'
and a similar baseline level of respect for others' time and knowledge in
assisting.

Insincere disputation is often characterized by disrespect for others' time or
intelligence. Temporal disrespect most commonly manifests as endless
questions, especially naive or simplistic seeming ones that become more and
more technical while critiquing unwanted replies as unsatisfactory - a simple
but effective strategy for manipulating a conversation by faking superiority.
The lazier version of this is to simply abuse people by deriding their claims
as hoaxes. Attacking the claimant proceeds by discounting their intelligence,
integrity, or sanity without any basis in fact.

Of course, such 'critiques' are rarely persuasive to the target person, or to
other participants in the discussion. They are not meant to persuade, but are
a performative display designed to swindle the gullible, cause despondency in
the frustrated, and humiliate the target for the amusement of sadists.
Negatives reactions are equated to negative evidence and most if not all of
the argumentation involves drawing logical conclusions from an invalid major
premises which are usually epistemological nitpicks.

tl;dr it's not that hard to express or detect genuine doubt, curiosity, or
confusion - nor bad-faith efforts to derail discussion.

~~~
letsgvgpvpwr
My main concern is that global climate change will be the excuse the world
governments need to increase their power over us.

Governments the world over are responsible for the most horrific of crimes
against humanity, it is time for us to find and exercise a new model of
governance.

~~~
not2b
There's no alternative to control. If you don't have a government, you have a
local band of thugs running things, or you have a good thing for a little
while (as in the Spanish Republic) until it gets crushed by fascists on one
side and Stalinists on the other. You can have limited government, but it
can't be so limited that cannot achieve the goal of stabilizing the climate.
Your new model has to get the job done; if not, then half the planet becomes
uninhabitable and billions have to move, resulting in wars like we've never
seen.

Cooperative arrangements are great when they work, but too many human beings
are assholes.

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rambojazz
I cannot read the article. Is there a non-paywalled version?

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nikolay
[https://archive.fo/9sNgA](https://archive.fo/9sNgA)

~~~
singularity2001
or use [https://outline.com/](https://outline.com/)

