The Climate Change Discussion Thread

[milomilo]

I've realised (though still not fully learned) there is no point wasting time on these people. Like the religious, or flat earthers, or any other form of anti science BS, you cannot reason someone out of a position they did not reason themselves into.

[Tete Carre]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Not this shit again. Got a link handy there bro?

https://principia-scientific.org/che...lobal-warming/

I never said I believe it, so the knee jerk dismissal says more about you zealots than it does me.

[milomilo]

If your only contribution to the thread is pseudo science, then it's logical we assume you believe it.

[Tete Carre]

Originally Posted by milomilo

If your only contribution to the thread is pseudo science, then it's logical we assume you believe it.

Telling me I believe something even though I expressed that I don’t? Lol how about you call me a racist and have me banned ... aka the liberal hat trick. All I said was the science is not settled lol

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Tete Carre

Telling me I believe something even though I expressed that I don’t? Lol how about you call me a racist and have me banned ... aka the liberal hat trick. All I said was the science is not settled lol

You said 'I never said I believe it' (not the same as not believing it) after both of us had posted based on your previous post, saying 'the science isn't settled', which sounds a hell of a lot like you believe the claim.

Science is never settled. So your incredibly smart accusation that the science isn't settled is an absurdity.

[Tete Carre]

Originally Posted by milomilo

You said 'I never said I believe it' (not the same as not believing it) after both of us had posted based on your previous post, saying 'the science isn't settled', which sounds a hell of a lot like you believe the claim.

Science is never settled. So your incredibly smart accusation that the science isn't settled is an absurdity.

You seem like you’re fun at parties. I believe that. It’s what I believe.

[Mikemike]

Originally Posted by Tete Carre

https://principia-scientific.org/che...lobal-warming/

I never said I believe it, so the knee jerk dismissal says more about you zealots than it does me.

Wow. This so called chemistry expert has no clue how radiative heat transfer works, that the sun exists or that no one supposes the greenhouse effect to take place all in one instant. Either he’s making up his credentials or he’s intentionally making shit up to confuse the ignorant.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by milomilo

At the other end of the spectrum though, you have the deniers who are opposed to even the slightest efforts to reduce emissions. The transition ideally would be gradual, but every year where we continue to increase our emissions means that the transition will be necessarily harsher.

Sure. There will always be people with ridiculous beliefs.

Here is a chart of emissions in Canada:


Source

But this masks what is going on regionally:



If we had a "Canada minus the Prairies" chart from 2005-2017 we'd see emissions dropping a lot faster. I also don't think these include carbon capture initiatives (mostly reforestation).

And it probably is true that if we continue on the path of increased emissions every year, the result will be apocalyptic. That's basically a mathematical fact. Unless we run out of fossil fuels before we can fry the planet too much - but then we'll still have to find an alternate energy source.

Not really on a human timescale. In the time we went from horses and buggies to landing on the moon the average global temperature went up by around 0.3-0.5 C.

[Mikemike]

Originally Posted by someone123

Not really on a human timescale. In the time we went from horses and buggies to landing on the moon the average global temperature went up by around 0.3-0.5 C.

Current rate of CO2 rise is approaching 3ppm per year and still growing with half the world’s population still barely contributing.
We’ve emitted several times as much post Apollo as before.
We’ve gone from ~280 to 410 in 200 years, the next 200years will see us blow past 1000ppm unless things change.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by someone123

Sure. There will always be people with ridiculous beliefs.

Here is a chart of emissions in Canada:

[img]https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/greenhouse-gas-emissions/_jcr_content/par/mwstabbed_interface_/summary-details2/mwsadaptiveimage/image.img.png/1554751631361.png[img]
Source

But this masks what is going on regionally, and the fact that the peak was much later than 1990:

[img]https://www.canada.ca/en/environment...4751460661.png[img]

If we had a "Canada minus the Prairies" chart from 2005-2017 we'd see emissions dropping a lot faster.



Not really on a human timescale. In the time we went from horses and buggies to landing on the moon the average global temperature went up by around 0.3-0.5 C.

The question is how much of a time lag is there between raising the CO2 and the subsequent temperature rise. I just read that the CO2 in our atmosphere keeps our planet's temperature 33 degrees hotter than it would otherwise be. What would happen if we doubled that concentration (as we probably will)? The sensible policy would be not to risk it, as we don't have a backup planet.

And I totally get that Alberta is the biggest reason Canada is not doing better. I'm actually surprised this doesn't get mentioned more (probably because it is actually logical). The oilsands are making hitting Canada's targets incredibly more difficult. I'd be much more comfortable with selling Canada's oil if we had produced it with reasonable CO2 output, but the amount it produces is absolutely obscene. Of course, if we don't produce it, someone else will. But those emissions still get put on our balance sheet.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by milomilo

The question is how much of a time lag is there between raising the CO2 and the subsequent temperature rise. I just read that the CO2 in our atmosphere keeps our planet's temperature 33 degrees hotter than it would otherwise be. What would happen if we doubled that concentration (as we probably will)? The sensible policy would be not to risk it, as we don't have a backup planet.

And I totally get that Alberta is the biggest reason Canada is not doing better. I'm actually surprised this doesn't get mentioned more (probably because it is actually logical). The oilsands are making hitting Canada's targets incredibly more difficult. I'd be much more comfortable with selling Canada's oil if we had produced it with reasonable CO2 output, but the amount it produces is absolutely obscene. Of course, if we don't produce it, someone else will. But those emissions still get put on our balance sheet.

Venus CO2 ppm is around 30,000 and the surface temp is 462C, so there's that to shoot for.

With respect to Alberta, if we cut off all oil sands supply, the price will spike and less will be consumed worldwide. I'm not suggesting this as a strategy, but it would happen. And other renewable sources of power would start to look a lot more cost effective.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Venus CO2 ppm is around 30,000 and the surface temp is 462C, so there's that to shoot for.

With respect to Alberta, if we cut off all oil sands supply, the price will spike and less will be consumed worldwide. I'm not suggesting this as a strategy, but it would happen. And other renewable sources of power would start to look a lot more cost effective.

It's hard to say exactly how the economics would play out. With a higher price, harder to extract sources of oil will start to become economically viable and thwy will likely be more energy intensive. Perhaps if Alberta had never developed its resources, the crash in oil prices recently would never have happened and Venezuela would still be producing its even worse oil.

[WarrenC12]

Law of supply and demand tells us the price would equalize higher at a lower volume. So overall lower carbon emissions.

Of course the whole equation leaves out the negative externalities of burning fossil fuel.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by milomilo

The question is how much of a time lag is there between raising the CO2 and the subsequent temperature rise. I just read that the CO2 in our atmosphere keeps our planet's temperature 33 degrees hotter than it would otherwise be.

I think that's including all greenhouse gases, the biggest one being water vapor.

What would happen if we doubled that concentration (as we probably will)? The sensible policy would be not to risk it, as we don't have a backup planet.

That's a big question that has puzzled climate science; in 1979 the guess was 1.5C-4.5C; the best guess today is still 1.5C-4.5C.

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

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Venus CO2 ppm is around 30,000 and the surface temp is 462C, so there's that to shoot for.

Venus CO2 ppm is 965000, but then cold Mars is 949000 CO2 ppm.

There's far more to a planet's temperature than the CO2 ppm.

[jawagord]

Originally Posted by milomilo

The question is how much of a time lag is there between raising the CO2 and the subsequent temperature rise. I just read that the CO2 in our atmosphere keeps our planet's temperature 33 degrees hotter than it would otherwise be. What would happen if we doubled that concentration (as we probably will)? The sensible policy would be not to risk it, as we don't have a backup planet.

Not much Milo, that is if you are really asking and not just obfuscating by posing a rhetorical question? CO2 has reduced affect for energy absorbing as concentrations increase, think inversely exponential to paraphrase a climate changer term, as the earth is close to saturated in green house gases with H20 the dominant greenhouse gas and cloud creating sun blocker.

Hence, doubling of CO2 concentration has no effect on the amount of extra CO2 absorbed energy under cloud cover. Consequentlydoubling of CO2 concentration can only have effect on the clear sky parts of the atmosphere and this is calculated herein.

At doubling of CO2 concentration from 300ppm to 600ppm we have calculated an additional absorption of 3.5W/m2 under clear sky conditions only, for reasons mentioned earlier. The global / yearly average clear sky area is reported to be 38% [iii]

That leaves us with 1.33 w/m2 extra absorption of which we assume that half will be lost into space and half (0,66W/m2 ) contributes to a temperature increase with an worst case upper limit of  0,16K. so in reality will be much less.

https://www.sciencetalks.nl/the-phys...-doubling-co2/

[cutchemist42]

So a popular sentiment on reddit is to why bother fighting climate change if the USA and China arent taking it seriously. What are the takes here?

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by jawagord

Not much Milo, that is if you are really asking and not just obfuscating by posing a rhetorical question? CO2 has reduced affect for energy absorbing as concentrations increase, think inversely exponential to paraphrase a climate changer term, as the earth is close to saturated in green house gases with H20 the dominant greenhouse gas and cloud creating sun blocker.

Hence, doubling of CO2 concentration has no effect on the amount of extra CO2 absorbed energy under cloud cover. Consequentlydoubling of CO2 concentration can only have effect on the clear sky parts of the atmosphere and this is calculated herein.

At doubling of CO2 concentration from 300ppm to 600ppm we have calculated an additional absorption of 3.5W/m2 under clear sky conditions only, for reasons mentioned earlier. The global / yearly average clear sky area is reported to be 38% [iii]

That leaves us with 1.33 w/m2 extra absorption of which we assume that half will be lost into space and half (0,66W/m2 ) contributes to a temperature increase with an worst case upper limit of  0,16K. so in reality will be much less.

https://www.sciencetalks.nl/the-phys...-doubling-co2/

You're cherry picking. If you choose not to believe all the science saying that rising CO2 is bad, why is this one article (is this even peer reviewed?) correct to say rising CO2 is not bad? Neither of us have the qualifications to research this ourselves, so we have to trust the scientific consensus. Or say it's all a conspiracy.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by cutchemist42

So a popular sentiment on reddit is to why bother fighting climate change if the USA and China arent taking it seriously. What are the takes here?

It's a reasonable thing to ask, and an easy excuse to do nothing. But we should reject this for a number of reasons. First, things change - we may have an orange buffoon in the White House right now, but that isn't a permanent situation. It wasn't that long ago that there was an administration that did care about climate change, and hopefully there will be in the future too. IRT China, they have lower per capita emissions than Canada, so it is highly hypocritical for a Canadian to say we should do nothing until the Chinese do. Granted, there is plenty they can do to reduce their emissions, and hopefully they will. They are the only place building significant nuclear, so that helps.

Second, lowering our emissions does not have to significantly harm our economy, and starting the transition now sets us up better for a future where fossil fuels are (hopefully) used far less. This is why I (as should everyone else) support policy that makes the transition in the cheapest, most efficient, painless way. That seems blindingly obvious to me, but there is support everywhere for policy that either barely reduces emissions at great cost, or significantly reduces emissions at catastrophic costs.

[jawagord]

Originally Posted by milomilo

You're cherry picking. If you choose not to believe all the science saying that rising CO2 is bad, why is this one article (is this even peer reviewed?) correct to say rising CO2 is not bad? Neither of us have the qualifications to research this ourselves, so we have to trust the scientific consensus. Or say it's all a conspiracy.

No, I’m answering your question, you picked the cherry. This article was the latest one that came up in my quick search, recent (later) articles tend to have more up to date information but feel free to do your own homework on this one if the answer or the author doesn’t suit you. I expect the answers you will find are all generally the same so then you will have to change the question to something less specific and less scientific that allows for a nebulous consensus answer.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by jawagord

No, I’m answering your question, you picked the cherry. This article was the latest one that came up in my quick search, recent (later) articles tend to have more up to date information but feel free to do your own homework on this one if the answer or the author doesn’t suit you. I expect the answers you will find are all generally the same so then you will have to change the question to something less specific and less scientific that allows for a nebulous consensus answer.

That is a load of waffle.

It was a mostly rhetorical question, I don't know the answer, neither do you. Neither does anyone, truthfully. But given that we know CO2 has an impact on the climate, and has been within a certain range for a hundred thousand years or so, using our planet as the experiment to test the limits is utterly foolhardy. Even if there was only a 1% chance increasing CO2 would wreck the planet, it would be a dumb idea to increase CO2 emissions forever.

Honestly, I don't know why we even have to debate this anymore. The discussion has moved on, no one serious is actually denying climate change these days.