Climate Change

[mordant]

My own grandparents died in the 70s.  Computers were huge machines kept in sterile environments and as IBM said around that time "maybe 3 or 4 could be useful".  The idea of the internet was so far beyond them.

That prediction was made Thomas Watson in 1943. By the 1970s there were already countless computers, both mainframe and minicomputers. The first crude 8-bit microcomputers arrived during the 1970s as well (the Apple II, the TRS-80 Model 1, etc). It's true that the Internet was a development of the 1990s. It's also true that even in the early days of the Internet, many folks failed to predict the ultimate implications and developments around the "networking effect"; in fact in the 1990s Bill Gates got a lot of press talking about his vision of "information at your fingertips" -- not via the Internet, but via CDs.

Gates was also responsible for another bad prediction; in the 1980s, commenting on the maximum memory in the architecture of the IBM PC XT, he asked, what would anyone ever do with more than 640K of RAM? It seemed like alot at the time because 16 bit computers were just coming into use and that was 10x the maximum possible memory in an 8-bit computer (apart from awkward bank switching anyway). Today, even the most poorly-endowed personal computers have about 1600x as much memory as the PC-XT.

That's the problem with predicting the future, there are a lot of unintended consequences, both boons and difficulties, that can be very hard to foresee.

[Phaedrus]

Obama meets with Greta Thunberg

Former President Obama met with 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday as part of her visit to Washington, D.C., to lobby lawmakers on environmental issues.

“Just 16, @GretaThunberg is already one of our planet’s greatest advocates. Recognizing that her generation will bear the brunt of climate change, she’s unafraid to push for real action. She embodies our vision at the @ObamaFoundation: A future shaped by young leaders like her,” Obama tweeted, including a photo of the meeting.

[GenesisNemesis]

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comment...nge_is_in/

Some climate change experts discussing climate change on Reddit. This is what makes Reddit great. Also the answers to the comments aren't in yet.

[GenesisNemesis]

Apparently my questions in that thread are getting downvoted by climate change deniers. What's so fucking hard about understanding humans are influencing the climate and that it will have/is having catastrophic consequences? I honestly don't get it.

[Phaedrus]

Youth climate activist has no time for Repub immaturity in viral video

[GenesisNemesis]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/globa...s-n1056231

Crowds of children jammed the streets of major cities Friday in a global show of force to demand action on climate change, with many young people skipping school in protest and sharing a unified message aimed at world leaders.

"No matter how many times they try to ignore the issue, you can see every teenager in the area is here," said Isha Venturi, a 15-year-old high school sophomore from New Jersey who was in New York's lower Manhattan for the "Global Climate Strike."

"We're not quiet anymore, and change is coming," added Venturi, who was joined by her parents.

[GenesisNemesis]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...goes-viral

A hoax photo that claims to show rubbish left behind by Australian climate strike protesters is circulating on Facebook, despite being revealed as fake months ago.

Though it lacks any verification, and was debunked in April, the image and false caption have been shared 19,000 times in 12 hours, and thousands of times from copycats.

On Friday, an estimated 300,000 Australians, and millions of people around the world, took part in protests against inaction on the climate emergency.

Hours later, an Australian pro-coal page reposted the photo, which originated in April. It was captioned: “Look at the mess today’s climate protesters left behind in beautiful Hyde Park.”

However, the photo is not from a climate strike, not from Friday and was not taken in Australia. It is from a marijuana-based festival called 420 held in London in April 2019.

[Phaedrus]

[Alan V]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-0...cBhuRllN5k

The Australian capital, Canberra, will become the first city outside Europe to shift from fossil fuel to 100% renewable energy.

From 1 January 2020, Canberra will join seven other districts around the world that produces or purchase the equivalent of their total electricity consumption from renewable sources, according to a report released on 18 September by policy think tank the Australia Institute in Canberra.

[Cavebear]

My own grandparents died in the 70s.  Computers were huge machines kept in sterile environments and as IBM said around that time "maybe 3 or 4 could be useful".  The idea of the internet was so far beyond them.

That prediction was made Thomas Watson in 1943. By the 1970s there were already countless computers, both mainframe and minicomputers. The first crude 8-bit microcomputers arrived during the 1970s as well (the Apple II, the TRS-80 Model 1, etc). It's true that the Internet was a development of the 1990s. It's also true that even in the early days of the Internet, many folks failed to predict the ultimate implications and developments around the "networking effect"; in fact in the 1990s Bill Gates got a lot of press talking about his vision of "information at your fingertips" -- not via the Internet, but via CDs.

Gates was also responsible for another bad prediction; in the 1980s, commenting on the maximum memory in the architecture of the IBM PC XT, he asked, what would anyone ever do with more than 640K of RAM? It seemed like alot at the time because 16 bit computers were just coming into use and that was 10x the maximum possible memory in an 8-bit computer (apart from awkward bank switching anyway). Today, even the most poorly-endowed personal computers have about 1600x as much memory as the PC-XT.

That's the problem with predicting the future, there are a lot of unintended consequences, both boons and difficulties, that can be very hard to foresee.

Telling me about what I know, LOL! I went to college in 1968, learned Fortran4 and Cobol (and was at the top of my classes, the stuff was easy), faced the mainframes that required punch cards, and have been involved with them ever since. I never wanted to be a programmer. At the time, I wanted to go into politics or law, AND I didn't see the personal computer future. Otherwise, I wouldn't be HERE; I'd be on a yacht near France with beautiful young women seeking my attention.

Not that life turned out badly, I ended up as the Telecommunications Manager at a US Agency. And enjoyed personal computers from Atari to Commodore 64 to Windows PCs to Apples... I loved them all.

And oh the early 9600 kbs (?) days of streaming chat over telephone lines... Wow, have I really been "online" 25+ years now?

[mordant]

My own grandparents died in the 70s.  Computers were huge machines kept in sterile environments and as IBM said around that time "maybe 3 or 4 could be useful".  The idea of the internet was so far beyond them.

That prediction was made Thomas Watson in 1943. By the 1970s there were already countless computers, both mainframe and minicomputers. The first crude 8-bit microcomputers arrived during the 1970s as well (the Apple II, the TRS-80 Model 1, etc). It's true that the Internet was a development of the 1990s. It's also true that even in the early days of the Internet, many folks failed to predict the ultimate implications and developments around the "networking effect"; in fact in the 1990s Bill Gates got a lot of press talking about his vision of "information at your fingertips" -- not via the Internet, but via CDs.

Gates was also responsible for another bad prediction; in the 1980s, commenting on the maximum memory in the architecture of the IBM PC XT, he asked, what would anyone ever do with more than 640K of RAM? It seemed like alot at the time because 16 bit computers were just coming into use and that was 10x the maximum possible memory in an 8-bit computer (apart from awkward bank switching anyway). Today, even the most poorly-endowed personal computers have about 1600x as much memory as the PC-XT.

That's the problem with predicting the future, there are a lot of unintended consequences, both boons and difficulties, that can be very hard to foresee.

Telling me about what I know, LOL!  I went to college in 1968, learned Fortran4 and Cobol (and was at the top of my classes, the stuff was easy), faced the mainframes that required punch cards, and have been involved with them ever since.  I never wanted to be a programmer.  At the time, I wanted to go into politics or law, AND I didn't see the personal computer future.  Otherwise, I wouldn't be HERE; I'd be on a yacht near France with beautiful young women seeking my attention.

Not that life turned out badly, I ended up as the Telecommunications Manager at a US Agency.  And enjoyed personal computers from Atari to Commodore 64 to Windows PCs to Apples...  I loved them all.

And oh the early 9600 kbs (?) days of streaming chat over telephone lines...    Wow, have I really been "online" 25+ years now?

One of my pleasures today is that the source code to TRS-DOS and its derivatives are generally available online, which I enjoy perusing. And if I had a little more hobby time I'm sure I could find a TRS-80 Model 4 emulator and images of most of the software for it and take a trip down memory lane.

[SYZ]

LOL... I've still got my pirated copies of autoCAD from 1986... on 1.2 MB, 5¼-inch floppies.  

And I don't (can't?) recall spending much time back then debating climate science.  Although
we were aware of changes in the climate, it certainly didn't have even the vaguest sense of
doom and gloom it does 33 years later. We were still building coal-fired and LNG power stations
all over Australia, and the only windmills you'd see here were mounted on rural bores. Nobody
would even have known then what a wind turbine was downunder.

[Mark]

I rather enjoyed THE GRETA THUNBERG HELPLINE: For adults angry at a child here.  I wish I could have posted the video directly but it wasn't on youtube when I looked.

[grympy]

I rather enjoyed THE GRETA THUNBERG HELPLINE: For adults angry at a child here.  I wish I could have posted the video directly but it wasn't on youtube when I looked.

Yup, sums up  my view with far more wit and articulation than I can muster 

[Aractus]

Fantastic video from Thoughty2:

[Alan V]

Fantastic video from Thoughty2:

Sorry, but some of that video is misleading.

For instance, massive amounts of land don't have to be cleared for solar or wind installations.  The most efficient solar can be installed on existing rooftops and over parking lots.  Wind installations can be installed across farmlands, giving farmers an additional income.

Solar photovoltaics, like we see as solar panels on the roofs of houses, convert sunlight directly into electricity. Solar thermal installations concentrate sunlight to heat water to run generators for electricity. The latter are not terribly efficient and take up a lot of space, so dispersed solar energy is better. By 2030, solar photovoltaics will most likely be the cheapest alternative to all choices.

All sources of energy have their pluses and minuses.  The real question is how they compare with each other, and with other problems.

Some object that wind turbines kill large numbers of birds each year. While this is indeed the case, studies have shown that far more fatalities are caused by other power sources, buildings, automobiles, and house cats. To further reduce their impact on birds, wind turbines can be set to rotate slower and located away from migration routes.

Since renewable energy sources so often suffer from intermittency problems, new solutions are required to deal with them. Smart, flexible grids could shift power by regions. Banks of batteries, pumped storage, and other storage methods could be employed. Redundancy of sources can also offset intermittency. One estimate is that 290% of the power needed for peak times would keep the need for storage back ups to a minimum.

Much new infrastructure will be required to transmit and store the energy generated at different times and locations by solar and wind power. Nevertheless, solar and wind power ultimately should be able to supply 80% of our electricity needs. Considering how much baseline power is already provided by current nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, and biomass sources, that 80% will be more than enough to replace the burning of fossil fuels. There is also some question as to whether sufficient supplies of certain rare metals required for solar and wind power will be available at the scale necessary for massive new infrastructure, but people are working on such materials issues.

The discussion of nuclear versus renewables is rather misleading as well.  Nuclear power creates 25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy, from reactor construction and decommission, and uranium refining and transport. Plus nuclear fuel is also being depleted. At current rates of usage, uranium reserves will only last another 80 years or so.

Thorium reactors are an interesting possibility, but they are under development and we need to move immediately on climate change.  So we have to apply the solutions we already have in hand.

There unquestionably will be downsides to switching to renewables in the short run, but the downsides of climate change far outweigh them.

[Phaedrus]

[Alan V]

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cro...A7TakRH7II

250 million years ago a surge of carbon dioxide triggered the Great Permian Extinction, which “ended with all but a sliver of life on Earth dead.” We are now pumping carbon into the atmosphere ten times faster than the volcanic eruptions that precipitated that ancient cataclysm. Although the fossil fuel era began two centuries ago, more than half of our carbon emissions have occurred in the last three decades, after James Hansen and other scientists began warning of our actions' consequences.

[Alan V]

Algae as a secret weapon to combat climate change:

https://qz.com/1718988/algae-might-be-a-...aaeKRW6hx4

Algae can be utilized in a number of ways to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Other than it being the most efficient solution for storing carbon dioxide, it can be easily used in a variety of other sustainable and commercial products or materials, from tennis shoes to steel alternatives to veggie burgers.

[GenesisNemesis]

Scientists Discover Record Methane Emission in the Russian Arctic

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/10/0...tic-a67621'

A group of scientific researchers has discovered a record methane emission coming from the eastern Siberian Sea, expedition organizer Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) said in a statement.

The scientists found concentrations of the greenhouse gas —  which can significantly influence the planet’s climate — up to nine times the global average.

“This is the most powerful gas fountain I've ever seen,” said Igor Semiletov, the head of the expedition and a TPU professor. “No one has ever recorded anything like this before."

Yup, still looking like we're fucked.

[Alan V]

Scientists Discover Record Methane Emission in the Russian Arctic

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/10/0...tic-a67621'

A group of scientific researchers has discovered a record methane emission coming from the eastern Siberian Sea, expedition organizer Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) said in a statement.

The scientists found concentrations of the greenhouse gas —  which can significantly influence the planet’s climate — up to nine times the global average.

“This is the most powerful gas fountain I've ever seen,” said Igor Semiletov, the head of the expedition and a TPU professor. “No one has ever recorded anything like this before."

Yup, still looking like we're fucked.

Scientists think that the CO2 released from volcanic activity at the end of the Permian raised the temperature of the ocean enough that it caused the melting of the methane hydrates (or clathrates), which in turn were a big part of the reason for the PETM mass extinction which killed 90 to 96% of all species.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%...al_Maximum

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

So yes, if we don't do something drastic within the next several decades, we will all be in big trouble.  You can't turn the bus when you're already flying off the cliff.

[grympy]

Scientists Discover Record Methane Emission in the Russian Arctic

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/10/0...tic-a67621'

A group of scientific researchers has discovered a record methane emission coming from the eastern Siberian Sea, expedition organizer Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) said in a statement.

The scientists found concentrations of the greenhouse gas —  which can significantly influence the planet’s climate — up to nine times the global average.

“This is the most powerful gas fountain I've ever seen,” said Igor Semiletov, the head of the expedition and a TPU professor. “No one has ever recorded anything like this before."

Yup, still looking like we're fucked.

Scientists think that the CO2 released from volcanic activity at the end of the Permian raised the temperature of the ocean enough that it caused the melting of the methane hydrates (or clathrates), which in turn were a big part of the reason for the PETM mass extinction which killed 90 to 96% of all species.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%...al_Maximum

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

So yes, if we don't do something drastic within the next several decades, we will all be in big trouble.  You can't turn the bus when you're already flying off the cliff.

Is this directly related to the melting of the permafrost?

We have been in real trouble for over 30 years. Now I think , we're pretty much fucked no matter what  is done.

[Alan V]

Scientists Discover Record Methane Emission in the Russian Arctic

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/10/0...tic-a67621'


Yup, still looking like we're fucked.

Scientists think that the CO2 released from volcanic activity at the end of the Permian raised the temperature of the ocean enough that it caused the melting of the methane hydrates (or clathrates), which in turn were a big part of the reason for the PETM mass extinction which killed 90 to 96% of all species.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%...al_Maximum

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

So yes, if we don't do something drastic within the next several decades, we will all be in big trouble.  You can't turn the bus when you're already flying off the cliff.

Is this directly related to the melting of the permafrost?

We have been in real trouble for over 30 years. Now I think , we're pretty much fucked no matter what  is done.

The melting of the methane hydrates would be in the ocean and not in the permafrost, although the permafrost could also release methane (as well as carbon).  The melting of the permafrost is considered a more immediate threat, in that it has already started in some places and could lead to even warmer temperatures which could push the earth beyond other thresholds.  The melting of the methane hydrates in the eastern Siberian Sea which GenesisNemesis mentioned is because that sea is so shallow and warming is more pronounced in the Arctic.  The melting of other methane hydrates likely won't be tripped until higher temperatures are reached, or until the heat in the ocean mixes into the lower depths.

In other words, different natural positive feedbacks are tripped at different temperatures, and the melting of the methane hydrates comes later in the series. We could conceivably pull CO2 from the atmosphere to help reduce it again, and methane oxidizes to CO2 after 12 years on average. But the problem is that methane has over 80 times the warming potential of CO2 in the meantime.

[GenesisNemesis]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...ge-deniers

Revealed: Google made large contributions to climate change deniers

Google has made “substantial” contributions to some of the most notorious climate deniers in Washington despite its insistence that it supports political action on the climate crisis.

Among hundreds of groups the company has listed on its website as beneficiaries of its political giving are more than a dozen organisations that have campaigned against climate legislation, questioned the need for action, or actively sought to roll back Obama-era environmental protections.

The list includes the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative policy group that was instrumental in convincing the Trump administration to abandon the Paris agreement and has criticised the White House for not dismantling more environmental rules.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm banking on the black smokers to get things going again in a few million years.