The warm air flowing to the Artic is royally messing with Jet stream and amplifying the energy of Rossby waves. The heat dome, the polar vortex, the floods in Europe are all connected to this phenomenon and connected to global warming. Living in the Pacific Northwest I though things would be “ok” here until 2030, but after this recent heat wave I knew for certain I was absolutely and naively wrong.
One of the issues with anything that makes money, is that it encourages a “race to make a pile.”
People want to make as big a pile of money as possible, as quickly as they can, with the idea that the pile will be big enough to allow them (and just them) to be secure for the rest of their (and just their) lives.
That attitude runs directly counter to the long-term planning, and sacrifice for the greater good, that is necessary to combat things like this.
Some Asian nations, with their focus on Society, may be better equipped to deal with this, than nations that heavily promote individual achievement.
It's more a matter of hanging on to what they have in favor of not capitalizing on a major opportunity right in front of their noses. The article phrases the upcoming investments in energy transition, mitigating the effects of climate change, etc. in terms of prevention and damage control. It's politically risky and companies are against it. That accurately describes the last four decades. But does it describe the next four when the proverbial shit is hitting the fan?
I think this continuous stream of weather caused disasters, record breaking heat waves, droughts, extremes, etc are slowly getting us ready to make some tough choices. The past year has shown that we can do that in a hurry when we have a pandemic. It's a matter of public opinion and once that shifts, things just happen really quickly and get a dynamic of their own. That change creates opportunities for companies to capitalize on. The changes are massive; therefore the opportunities are massive too. The NYT is right that that will involve a lot of money. They seem miss the notion that there's also a massive return on that investment. In a way capitalism and greed are working better here than politics and activism.
The first not so tough choice will be the timing of the complete death of the ICE vehicle industry. Weather it's 2030, 2035, or 2040 doesn't actually matter at this point because it is basically happening already. The consensus seems to be that the phase out of ICE vehicles is now inevitable and most manufacturers are already investing to survive beyond that. That creates a dynamic that basically makes it happen faster. Which seems to have taken a few manufacturers by surprise. Tesla paved the way for this in the last fifteen years. Now others are also having success in the market with EV only products. Sure most of these will happily churn out ICE vehicles as long as they can get away with it but increasingly they are looking towards EVs for growth, good press, profit, etc. Companies merely holding on to what they have without investing will simply be wiped out. To some extent that is already happening as well.
The same transition is happening in the energy sector. Wind and solar are basically killing more co2 intensive forms of energy generation like coal and increasingly also gas. There too people are haggling over when the final plants are being shut down. But economics are driving that transition faster than years of activism could. Wind is cheaper, therefore coal plants are disappearing by the double digit GW per year now.
These natural disasters that are widely attributed to climate change are just going to make it happen faster. But it was already happening anyway.
> People want to make as big a pile of money as possible, as quickly as they can, with the idea that the pile will be big enough to allow them (and just them) to be secure for the rest of their (and just their) lives.
In a society as cut-throat capitalist as the US, yes. In "welfare states" such as Europe, where everyone has their basic needs in life (housing, healthcare and food) at least somewhat met, this desire is far less pronounced.
To some parts this is a matter of education. It's been studied that few years of economic school makes people more greedy and selfish so I'm tempted to think that it'd also work the other way. And what is the capitalist society for people living in it if not a school of economics.
This is a visualization tool of an IPCC study where you can compare various climate scenarios. All the data and publications are available there too:
https://hotspots-explorer.org/
By the way, it's quite hard to nail down what exactly a certain region will look like in 30 years. That depends a whole lot on the assumptions that you take.
The models used for such work (IPCC etc) are rather suitable to compare actions, e.g. "If we don't take measure X and Y now, then the average temperature in this region will be 0.7° higher 30 years from now, compared to taking that measure."
The relentless doom saying gives the impression that there are some studies or research or science out there that can accurately make predictions of the sort you are interested in, but as far as I know that’s not the case. I’m not aware of any system with a track record of predicting climates that far out.
A volcano could erupt tomorrow and create much cooler climates around the world.
Al Gore’s movie from the early 2000s said Florida would be underwater by now. What’s the actual sea level rise in the intervening period been? A cm or 2, if that?
Unfortunately, it seems like individuals will start spending more money on cooling solutions (air con, insulation). Local government will spend more on wildfire prevention (fewer trees, more housing restrictions) and national governments will continue to promise they'll ban X, Y and Z in 10-15 years (when they'll not be in power or will have quietly dropped the promise in the next election).
I hope I'm wrong but living in the UK, I really don't see how we get from where we are now to somewhere sustainable fast enough to make any sort of difference.
Who is"them"? Its a matter of system change but also the neglected part of individual responsibility. At least in the form that we need to be more active by pressuring and electing decision makers. To act on our behalf and bot the corporate/offshore world.
With decarbonization already slated to absorb a huge chunk of money it'll need a policy change towards mitigation to get societies ready for changing climates.
Addressing current/emerging problems over future problems will be the next policy battleground on climate.
[+] [-] typeformer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisMarshallNY|4 years ago|reply
People want to make as big a pile of money as possible, as quickly as they can, with the idea that the pile will be big enough to allow them (and just them) to be secure for the rest of their (and just their) lives.
That attitude runs directly counter to the long-term planning, and sacrifice for the greater good, that is necessary to combat things like this.
Some Asian nations, with their focus on Society, may be better equipped to deal with this, than nations that heavily promote individual achievement.
[+] [-] nradov|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jillesvangurp|4 years ago|reply
I think this continuous stream of weather caused disasters, record breaking heat waves, droughts, extremes, etc are slowly getting us ready to make some tough choices. The past year has shown that we can do that in a hurry when we have a pandemic. It's a matter of public opinion and once that shifts, things just happen really quickly and get a dynamic of their own. That change creates opportunities for companies to capitalize on. The changes are massive; therefore the opportunities are massive too. The NYT is right that that will involve a lot of money. They seem miss the notion that there's also a massive return on that investment. In a way capitalism and greed are working better here than politics and activism.
The first not so tough choice will be the timing of the complete death of the ICE vehicle industry. Weather it's 2030, 2035, or 2040 doesn't actually matter at this point because it is basically happening already. The consensus seems to be that the phase out of ICE vehicles is now inevitable and most manufacturers are already investing to survive beyond that. That creates a dynamic that basically makes it happen faster. Which seems to have taken a few manufacturers by surprise. Tesla paved the way for this in the last fifteen years. Now others are also having success in the market with EV only products. Sure most of these will happily churn out ICE vehicles as long as they can get away with it but increasingly they are looking towards EVs for growth, good press, profit, etc. Companies merely holding on to what they have without investing will simply be wiped out. To some extent that is already happening as well.
The same transition is happening in the energy sector. Wind and solar are basically killing more co2 intensive forms of energy generation like coal and increasingly also gas. There too people are haggling over when the final plants are being shut down. But economics are driving that transition faster than years of activism could. Wind is cheaper, therefore coal plants are disappearing by the double digit GW per year now.
These natural disasters that are widely attributed to climate change are just going to make it happen faster. But it was already happening anyway.
[+] [-] mschuster91|4 years ago|reply
In a society as cut-throat capitalist as the US, yes. In "welfare states" such as Europe, where everyone has their basic needs in life (housing, healthcare and food) at least somewhat met, this desire is far less pronounced.
[+] [-] tapgnid|4 years ago|reply
https://www.npr.org/2017/02/21/516375434/does-studying-econo...
[+] [-] vldmrs|4 years ago|reply
I would like to know how the place I am currently living at will be different now vs 10-30 years from today.
[+] [-] Flip-per|4 years ago|reply
By the way, it's quite hard to nail down what exactly a certain region will look like in 30 years. That depends a whole lot on the assumptions that you take. The models used for such work (IPCC etc) are rather suitable to compare actions, e.g. "If we don't take measure X and Y now, then the average temperature in this region will be 0.7° higher 30 years from now, compared to taking that measure."
[+] [-] js8|4 years ago|reply
The AR6 version is supposed to come out next year.
[+] [-] canoebuilder|4 years ago|reply
A volcano could erupt tomorrow and create much cooler climates around the world.
Al Gore’s movie from the early 2000s said Florida would be underwater by now. What’s the actual sea level rise in the intervening period been? A cm or 2, if that?
[+] [-] RONROC|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nprateem|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aclelland|4 years ago|reply
I hope I'm wrong but living in the UK, I really don't see how we get from where we are now to somewhere sustainable fast enough to make any sort of difference.
[+] [-] shrubby|4 years ago|reply
https://econormalisation.kapsi.fi/ this was an incomplete but interesting take on a possible solution.
[+] [-] RandomLensman|4 years ago|reply
Addressing current/emerging problems over future problems will be the next policy battleground on climate.
[+] [-] bluepanda928752|4 years ago|reply