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.
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.
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?
Yes, even if we completely eliminate carbon emissions, our current carbon debt is around 1 trillion tons [1]. We'll need to remove that much carbon from the atmosphere within 50 years or so, given we stop all of our emissions today.
It's quite interesting because if we stoped all emissions right now the temperature would increase due to lack of aerosol emissions. It's speculated that air quality regulations in Europe led to warming of arctic by 0.5°C (https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2673).
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.
The half life of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 30 years (2.5%/yr). We're currently at ~400ppm, whereas before industrialization we were at ~250 (there are other sources). So yes, if we stopped anthropogenic CO2 we would very likely avoid a 1.5C increase.
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?
"Biomass" plants aka wood furnaces with a bit more marketing serve a political purpose. Renewables have an intermitence problem which will require a huge storage and peak load infrastructure solution to address it.
Until that problem is solved the "Biomass" wood furnaces and "Natural" Gas power plants serve the political purpose of allowing politicians to claim that they are ditching 'dirty' coal and 'dangerous' nuclear, those solutions will probably still create less CO2 emissions but they are by no means "green" or "eco" anything.
The problem with renewables is not power production but Power intermitence. Offshore wind farms can help but the scale of power that we consume will need a much deeper ground-breaking technical solution or a vastly greater power consumption reduction from consumers and industry, or both.
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.
Biomass works when there already is a source of biomass around which otherwise needs to be taken care of, e.g. in areas with intense forestry, next to sawmills etc. As soon as you need to import biomass you're lost since a) this entails transports over longer distances and b) you loose the oversight on how that biomass is produced. This leads to insane situations like Stockholm importing biomass from the Americas.
Wherever plants grow, there is biomass created. With agriculture, it is all the parts of the plants which aren't eaten, be it by humans or lifestock. But the same applies for all natural plants growing. Left on its own, it would decay and emit most of the carbon content as CO2 anyway. Burning any available biomass for energy generation is basically CO2 neutral. Using available biomass as an energy source, is a good way of reducing the carbon footprint. However, there is only so much available, the ability to artificially increase the supply is extremely limited.
Biomass is obviously CO2 neutral as long as it is replaced. The ratio between burned and used is of course important. Is 1:1 CO2 neutral? Probably not, due to losses and transport. Is 1:2, 1:3?
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.
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.
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.
[+] [-] tda|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nicbou|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] 0x402DF854|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] changoplatanero|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0x402DF854|5 years ago|reply
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyQvfaW54NU
[+] [-] kgabis|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nostrademons|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kurthr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fuzzybear3965|5 years ago|reply
Is this a "haters gonna hate" kind of situation or are biomass plants legitimately an evil in disguise?
[+] [-] DoingIsLearning|5 years ago|reply
Until that problem is solved the "Biomass" wood furnaces and "Natural" Gas power plants serve the political purpose of allowing politicians to claim that they are ditching 'dirty' coal and 'dangerous' nuclear, those solutions will probably still create less CO2 emissions but they are by no means "green" or "eco" anything.
The problem with renewables is not power production but Power intermitence. Offshore wind farms can help but the scale of power that we consume will need a much deeper ground-breaking technical solution or a vastly greater power consumption reduction from consumers and industry, or both.
[+] [-] moksly|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Yetanfou|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _ph_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] choeger|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tylerjwilk00|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0-_-0|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] auganov|5 years ago|reply
https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_...
[+] [-] fallingfrog|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xwdv|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tuatoru|5 years ago|reply
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, ...
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ouid|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tuatoru|5 years ago|reply
No, it can't. Urgent inaction can change trends, though. Stop mining coal. Stop making cement. Stop refining oil and gas. Stop eating meat.